The Minister of Agrarian Policy stated that there are investors in Ukraine who are ready to invest in the construction of a railway with a gauge of 1520 mm to the ports of Gdansk and Klaipeda.
The construction of a railway with a track width of 1520 mm from the Ukrainian border to the ports of Gdansk (Poland) and Klaipėda (Lithuania) will facilitate the delivery of Ukrainian grain and give Poland the opportunity to earn from its transit. At the same time, there are investors in Ukraine who are ready to finance this project.
As TTS writes with reference to Interfax-Ukraine, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solskyi told about this in an interview with Puls Biznesu.
The official said that if a broad-gauge railway is built through the territory of Poland from the border with Ukraine to Gdańsk, Ukrainian companies will guarantee the appropriate scale of transportation along this route for 10 years.
"I will say more: Poland will be able to build factories for the processing of Ukrainian grain on its coast and export finished products, which, of course, will earn more money," the minister said.
According to him, there are many times more wagons for transporting grain in Ukraine than in all EU countries. Therefore, instead of investing in wagons for the European standard track, it is more expedient to build a 1520 mm track from the Ukrainian border to the Polish coast.
Solskyi also reported that there are investors in Ukraine who are ready to finance such an infrastructure project.
"The issue that needs to be resolved is the adoption by the Polish parliament of a simplified procedure for such investment. Such a simplified procedure has already been adopted in Poland, for example, in the case of the construction of an oil port or a gas terminal. I know that this proposal has been analyzed. However, probably it is better to ask Polish sources about the fate of the project," the Ukrainian minister added.
We will remind that in 2022, the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council, together with other participants of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Forum, appealed to the President and Prime Minister of Poland regarding the possibility of laying a 1520 mm railway through the territory of this country. The European Business Association came forward to support this project. It was noted that the railway to Polish and Lithuanian ports can be implemented both by reconstruction of the existing railway network and construction of a combined track, and by construction of a separate railway branch.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, the head of Ukrzaliznytsia at that time, commented on the idea as follows: "The EU will not even consider such a proposal from a security point of view. Especially at a time like now, because broad gauge is the Russian standard. And from the economic point of view, the construction of such a gauge it would take 6-7 years, so such a project is not relevant now."
According to one of the interlocutors of the CTS from the UZ, Poland will be more inclined to connect with the Ukrainiany railway network with a gauge of the European standard of 1435 mm, following the example of how it is done with the Baltic countries.