The Tokyo MoU Committee meeting held in Vladivostok with participation of IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim, has a positive impact on international navigation and narrows the distance between the leadership of IMO and the maritime authorities of Russia, Victor Olersky, Deputy Transport Minister of the Russian Federation – Head of the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency, said in his interview with IAA PortNews correspondent between the sessions.

The future of the Kaliningrad Region's port sector is taking shape at last: cruise passengers, regasification terminal and container throughput growth driven by a container line between Kaliningrad and Saint-Petersburg. The risks are associated with underdeveloped approaches to the terminals, unclear economic effect from the cruise port’s activities and customs administration of traffic between the exclave and the mainland Russia.

Three years after Crimea reunited with Russia, some of local carries offering sea trips for tourists still work off the books. Yet, the number of licensed carriers is much higher.

With the completion of the project on construction of shipbuilding complex Zvezda, Russia can obtain an integrated system for building large capacity vessels: large pre-outfitted blocks will be manufactured by private shipyards and shipbuilding companies of USC with further assembling at Zvezda shipyard. However, there underlying potential problems.

Freight rates are stagnant for the second year in a row following their high level of 2015. The trends prevailing in the market show the growth of global tonnage exceeding moderate increase of demand for oil transportation.

Well known macroeconomical and geopolitical events have led to absence of demand for car handling facilities at the port of Ust-Luga. The remaining amount is flowing via Big Port St. Petersburg – MSCC Bronka, Petrolesport and Fish Port. Novorossiysk is still in demand for new cars imports to the southern regions of Russia.

Russia’s Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo) says there are about 40 pending contracts for construction of fishing ships. In the future, specialized ships like crab/mackerel/ivasi catching ships will be in special demand. It is also necessary to recover port infrastructure of fish terminals. At the same time, there too many terminals that are not dedicated but being used for coal transshipment and filling the air with dust … Is it possible to find one solution for both problems?

Far East Basin of Russia is to see the fastest development of seaports’ infrastructure. A good number of projects have been announced there with some of them remaining on paper.

Russia numbers about 100 large cruise ships of inland navigation. Their average age exceeds 40 years, therefore renovation of cruise fleet is a very urgent issue. Yevgeny Zagorodny, Vice-President for Civil Shipbuilding, United Shipbuilding Corporation, tells IAA PortNews about the plans and prospects of building new ships in Russia.

In the first half of 2017, Black Sea container terminals of Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia and Bulgaria handled 1,317,490 TEUs including empty containers and excluding transshipment.