Joint logistics railroad company to open in CU

New logistics railroad company may open under the Customs Union (CU) between Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus, Vedomosti writes citing an interview of the president of Russian RailRoads Vladimir Yakunin to Russia Today TV-channel. “We are reviewing the policy on economic space of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. In this context it is very important that an organization of cooperation between railroads complies with the state policy. From this point of view, container trains are the ones of paramount importance for all three parties. It is very important to create a special logistics company accountable for moving containers at least in these three countries,” Yakunin said in the interview. According to him, this issue is already discussed with Kazakhstan, negotiations are planned with Belarus railroads “that are also very interested”. He also noted that the logistics company will not become the affiliated company of TransContainer and will become “a new structure under cooperation of three countries”. “This cooperation is also quite interesting for our Western and Chinese partners. Thus, we think that it is very important to develop a railroads cooperation scheme to comply with the demand of the new organization of cooperation between three countries and then review the opportunities for privatization,” he explained. Earlier Tengrinews.kz English reported that Kazakhstan lacks wagons for grain export . “We currently need to export at least one million tons of grain every month. We are working on buying new wagons at Kazakhstan Temir Zholy. We have our own suggestion on activation of this work. We suggest to establish a joint company with ProdCorporation (Food Corporation) and increase the volume of planned wagons. We think that we need at least 5 thousand additional wagons besides the existing 5,200. Ideally Kazakhstan needs around 15 thousand wagons that would allow it to export around 1 million tons of grain every month,” Agriculture Minister Mamytbekov said.