Slot

RZD faces up to economic crisis.

Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian Railways (RZD), gave an address to the London School of Economics (LSE) on February 17 in which he talked about the importance of RZD to the Russian economy and the effects of the current world economic crisis. David Briginshaw was there to hear what he had to say.

VLADIMIR Yakunin started his lecture by pointing to the sheer scale of RZD's activities. "We employ 1.2 million people, and operate a network of about 85,000km spread across eight time zones," Yakunin explained. "RZD is second in the world by length, first in terms of electrification, and the biggest transport company possibly not only in Russia but the world. While this doesn't necessarily bring us a lot of money we should still understand the social importance of the company as it is."
In some Russian villages there is nothing but the railway, which puts a great social burden on RZD. "We have the second biggest health care system in Russia, we also have some kindergartens and boarding schools for our staff working in remote locations," Yakunin revealed. "Of course we are trying to get rid of some elements of the social structure because it is a great burden on the company."
Yakunin had a small victory last month when the government announced it will reimburse RZD the Roubles 2 billion ($US 55.8 million) it spends each year on providing reduced-fare travel for senior citizens, students, and children.
RZD plays a vital role in the Russian economy, as it carries 40% of all freight traffic - 80% if pipelines are excluded - and 40% of passenger traffic. Yakunin pointed to the great strides made by RZD since it became a joint stock company in 2003 as part of the three-stage reform of Russian railways. Freight traffic has increased by 12% and freight turnover by 27%, while passenger turnover has grown by 12%. At the time there have been huge improvements in productivity, with locomotive utilization increasing by 11% and that for freight wagons by 24%. Staff productivity has soared by 48%, which Yakunin described as an unprecedented achievement in Russia. Investment has trebled to reach $US 15.6 billion during this period.
But Yakunin said the world economic recession and financial crisis has been a very severe blow to RZD. Although RZD's results have not been published yet, Yakunin says he expects RZD's profit to fall from Roubles 84 billion in 2007 to just Roubles 4 billion last year.
He said freight traffic started to reduce in November, and fell sharply in December and by 33% in January, although as he explained to me later, January is always a bad month for freight in Russia because a lot of people are on holiday for half of the month.
There were some signs of recovery in February in certain types of freight such as coal, oil, metals and fertilizer. "It would be premature to talk about stabilisation, but at least in comparison with January we can measure a revival," Yakunin said earlier the same day during a meeting with Russia's prime minister, Mr Vladimir *Иванов**Иванов**Иванов**Иванов**Иванов*.
"We are trying to improve our efficiency," Yakunin told me. "We have cut our expenses by Roubles 173 billion, and as a result we have the moral support of the government. We also have the support of our staff, because we are not firing people. They are even coming to us to suggest cutting back their hours to work part time." Yakunin says that at best RZD will end 2009 at breakeven, but it could go into the red.
As far as investment is concerned, Yakunin said RZD has always believed that investment in infrastructure "will not bring a catastrophic rise in inflation in a country, it will support the economic development, and it is necessary to create new jobs, which is essential during such an economic crisis. Because of the research we did, we were one of the first to understand the necessity to be prepared for the coming crisis and we were first to develop a long-term plan for the development
of RZD and to present a budget to the government. "We have two scenarios: pessimistic and optimistic," Yakunin said. The pessimistic scenario calls for investment of Roubles 265 billion, which is about 15% less than in 2008. The optimistic scenario calls for additional spending of around Roubles 100 billion. He expects the government to reach a decision very shortly. Yakunin is keen to push forward an ambitious project to create a broad-gauge link from Moscow to Vienna to enable freight trains from the Far East to reach the European Union as quickly as possible (IRJ January pl4). The objective would be seven days compared with 40 days by deep sea container from Asia to Europe and 20 days by existing rail links. A special container train fitted with measuring equipment broke the Trans-Siberian Railway record in February by completing the 9244km from Vladivostok to Moscow in 6 days 20h 35min compared with the normal time of 12 days. Yakunin says there is widespread support for the broad-gauge link from Austrian Federal Railways, the Slovakian prime minister, Italy, Germany and Russia.
Yakunin confirmed that RZD will push ahead with plans to set up the so-called Second Freight Company. This will take over all the remaining freight wagons (apart from some essential needs), and take RZD a long way down the road towards becoming an infrastructure manager.

Изображения

rzd.jpg (6.00 Мб, 43 просмотров)