This week held an unusual visiting meeting organized jointly by two parliamentary committees: our transport committee, and the Committee for Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship. This format was used for the first time. It is conditioned by extremely acute, more precisely, sick theme, which concerns not only transport or entrepreneurship, but literally every Ukrainian. We discussed how Ukraine to revive its inland waterway transport.

I shall ask the Kievans: you have been to the River Station for a long time, for a long time you were riding on a pleasure boat? For some reason it seems to me that the majority will answer: a long time ago. On some boats scared to sit - go, as they say, on one "honest word". They are 20-40 years old, they have exhausted their resource for a long time, and they are all being repaired and repaired - as it is necessary and where it is necessary, in haste, every season. Because there are no others.

During the years of independence, the number of river vessels (both passenger and freight) decreased by 35%. And this is in view of the fact that the number announced includes ships that can no longer be operated. Today up to 82% of all vessels on river transport are technically obsolete, with an average service life of 21 to 25 years. At the same time, the shipbuilding industry is in critical condition. It is focused, first of all, on the performance of external orders: up to 80% of the products are exported.

so. A country with a total length of navigable rivers used as waterways more than two thousand kilometers - with a total capacity of these waterways of about 150 million tonnes per year - practically does not use its transport potential. And this despite the fact that river transport is five times more economical than an automobile one and - in one and a half times - a railway! So, having 5 liters of equivalent fuel, a ton of cargo along the river can be transported by 500 km, by rail - by 333 km, by road - by only 100 km.

Meanwhile, for the last 20 years the transportation of goods by river transport has decreased four times - from 12,845 to 3,156 thousand tons. Transportation in cabotage - five times, from 9585 to 1967 thousand tons. The number of passenger ships that still go on flights also fell several times. The operational length of inland waterways has decreased more than twice. Even worse is the comparison with the Soviet period. If in 1990 the volume of domestic transport by river transport in Ukraine was almost 67 million tons per year, but now this figure barely reaches 5 million tons.

A simple question: why? Why do we destroy an industry that is capable and should develop rapidly? Why - with the extreme load of "Ukrzaliznytsia" with a bunch of its problems, with congestion of roads that are destroyed under the wheels of trucks, we stubbornly ignore the river? Which could easily take over the lion's share of freight traffic: it's for you and grain, and sand, and metal, and fertilizers, and ore. Only by preliminary calculations of specialists, in our conditions economically justified transportation by a river is the volume of cargo up to 30 million tons! Has a chance for its development and passenger river transport. Has - but ... Will we give river transport such a chance?.

River transportation is not allowed to develop several factors: imperfect legislation, outdated port infrastructure (in particular - lack of terminals, lack of access roads, etc.. ), As well as clumsy management of state-owned enterprises that have long needed to be reformed. And above all this - the lack of a state policy that would support the industry. And so many years already.

A simple example. We open the Draft Guidelines for Budget Policy for 2018-2020. What do we see?.

The total amount of state capital investments for the development and implementation of state investment projects is at least UAH 1.7 billion each year. The money is distributed, in particular, in such areas: socio-cultural sphere and health, fuel and energy, mining and manufacturing, mineral resources, environmental protection, and then only transport.

Obviously: the transport sector is not a priority in terms of budget financing. Unfortunately. And although in the road industry I can note a certain victory - I mean the adoption of laws Nos. 1762, 1763 on the creation of the Road Fund as part of the state budget, in general, transport remains "overboard".

The problem of financing inland waterways has existed for many years. This sphere is not financed at all from the state budget (I mean capital investments in infrastructure). At the same time, state-owned enterprises of the industry exist separately. The right hand does not know what the left hand does.. As I have already said, the river transport authorities have long been in need of reform - in order to create a "single center" for managing the river industry, to evenly distribute financial resources received from river vessels. It is imperative, at last, to update the fixed assets of enterprises.

The key moment is the port and port infrastructure. Today, almost two-thirds of all its objects have been destroyed. No matter how much we support the construction of new ships and did not pass laws, without access roads, without roads, elevators, terminals - the industry is not reanimated.

We should follow the example of the West European river countries to concentrate around navigable rivers, build clusters there. Simultaneously - take as an example the European and world experience in creating the legislative framework.

Finally, we approached the most important factor, which, like a stone on the neck, pulls the industry to the bottom. Absence of basic legislation as such.

Today, the sphere of inland water transport has, in principle, no legal basis. The legal status of river ports, terminals, river transport lands and other, other - is not defined.

At the same time - do not forget that the Association Agreement with the EU just provides for a legal settlement of the industry, improvement of legislation in the field of river and sea transport.

The industry badly needs qualitative laws. In parallel, a number of by-laws should be drafted so that these laws work. Here the word is not only for the lawmakers, but in general for the state. The state is obliged to build a clear and transparent structure for the management of the industry, which would unite existing enterprises and help them effectively reform. The state should not interfere with the business striving to work in this area, while it should give preferences to domestic companies.

In this context, it is worth remembering the long-suffering legislative initiative to create the International Register of Ships of Ukraine. About its necessity it is spoken since the beginning of 2000th years. Today its appearance would provide attractive conditions for those who are ready to work under the Ukrainian state flag, increased the attractiveness of Ukrainian shipbuilding and ship repair enterprises.

All this set of measures, which I have named, in its turn will not only raise the state in the industry to a qualitatively new level, but will also give an impulse for the development of a powerful business in the entire transport sector. This will unequivocally activate investment and accelerate our integration into international transport corridors. Then it will finally be possible to say: the transport sphere, the river industry is the locomotive of the domestic economy. But for this it still needs to be given a chance. Well - at least remember her.

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