Ports to elaborate three-year development programs
Under the instructions of the First Deputy Minister of Public Infrastructure Kostiantyn Yefymenko, ports will develop three-year plans to expand and upgrade their infrastructure, reports the ministry’s press service. “We should not lose freight traffic because port warehouses are loaded to capacity and daily thresholds for handling railway cars are reached. Each port must look for ways to enlarge its storage areas and increase rail capacity,” said the first deputy minister at a meeting with industry leaders. Enlarging rear areas, as well as increasing rail capacity and expanding platforms for freight unloading will increase daily limits on railway car processing, which in turn will improve the performance of ports and railways. The plans’ development will involve railway officials and representatives of the sector’s research institutes, while expansion designs themselves will be discussed with the local authorities. “We will help ports solve all important issues, because every port has a remarkable effect on the economy of cities and regions which it serves,” said Yefymenko. In addition to enlarging storage space and expanding railway facilities, he instructed the management of ports and railways to consider the expansion of classification yards and port access railroads.
Ukrainian Railways to buy British-made containers for 47.82 million hryvnias
Company Container Express Ltd (London) intends to sell 800 universal containers to the Ukrainian State Center of Transport Service Liski (Kyiv), a structural division of the State Administration of Railway Transport Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia). According to the report filed with the disclosure of public procurement system, the British supplier’s proposal was accepted on January 26. The deadline for signing the sales contract is February 25. The contract is worth 47.82 million hryvnias.
Rebirth after Chornobyl
Recently in Zhytomyr the representatives of the Japanese NGO “Chornobyl- Tubu” met their Ukrainian partners to participate in the non-profit project “Rapeseed for the Rebirth of Narodychy District,” financed by Japan. A member of the board of “Chornobyl-Tubu,” the professor of the Yokkaichi University Masaharu Kawata and the director Tomio Hara discussed the results of the fourth stage of the project with the vice chancellor of Zhytomyr National Agrarian and Ecological University, professor Ivan Hrab, and the director of the Research Institute for Regional Ecological Problems at this university, the associate professor Mykola Didukh. The guests were especially interested in the project’s practical implementation. Didukh remarked that the development of recommendations on cultivation in Zhytomyr region, polluted by the radioelements after the Chornobyl accident, is in its final stage. During the visit of the “Chornobyl-Tubu” members, and with the participation of the Zhytomyr-based charitable foundation “Chornobyl’s hostages,” local authorities and experts from other countries (notably from Switzerland), an international seminar was held on the adoption of energy-saving technologies in the production of biofuel from rapeseed and biogas from the rape straw, both grown on the polluted territories.
