Latvian Railway (LDz) board chairman Rinalds Pļavnieks in an interview with Latvijas Radio on Tuesday the 15th of August stated that the amount of freight transported by LDz could decrease by 20-25% this year.
“If last year we managed to balance the freight volumes quite successfully and the decrease was relatively minimal, […] then this year we see that the decrease in volumes will most likely be by 20-25%,” Pļavnieks said. He explained that in freight transport
THE BIGGEST IMPACT HAS THE GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION AND THE SANCTIONS IMPOSED.
Pļavnieks mentioned that replacing freight volumes is a very complex task, including the fact that if last year it was relatively successful in replacing some freight with others, this year it is much more challenging. “But we see and believe that we can continue to work on such a sanction framework,” said the LDz chairman.
Pļavnieks also pointed out that it has been actively worked on freight transport in the so-called North South transport corridor, but while LDz can charge full infrastructure fees in cooperation with third countries, the company can only charge direct costs for transport within the European Union, which is 20-25%. “So, the commercial revenue in this case is much lower,” he added.
It has already been reported that in the first six months of this year the volume of rail freight transport in Latvia has decreased by 36.7% compared to the same period of 2022 and amounted to 7.746 million tonnes. International traffic amounted to 7.041 million tonnes, down 39.2% compared to the first six months of last year, while domestic traffic doubled to 705 000 tonnes.
In 2022, compared to 2021, the volume of rail freight transport in Latvia decreased by 1.7% and amounted to 21.588 million tonnes.
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