Three more General Cargo ships will be put on the Kaliningrad – Saint-Petersburg cargo line. The ships have been acquired by Kaliningrad companies under the programme for subsidizing investment projects in the region, Dmitry Lyskov, Press Secretary of the Kaliningrad Region Governor, told Interfax.
According to him, the residents of the special economic zone have been provided with about RUB 900 million: loans of up to RUB 300 million were given for a 7-year long period at 2% per annum.
Sea Line LLC has purchased a ship built in 1997. The ship named Zelenogradsk has a gross tonnage of 2.98 thousand tonnes and a deadweight of 5.2 thousand tonnes. It has already begun operation. The ship is currently being loaded in Saint-Petersburg.
The other ships were purchased by Kaliningrad Shipping Company LLC and Leo Logistics LLC. Built in 1998 and 2000, the ships have a gross tonnage of 3.17 thousand tonnes and 1.89 thousand tonnes, respectively. They are undergoing the registration procedure for operation in Russia. The ships are to be put the line in September.
In summer, Lithuania notified Kaliningrad authorities about the ban on certain goods transit passing by railway through Lithuania to the Kaliningrad Region. Although later EU allowed Russia to transit some sanctioned goods by rail transport to its exclave via the Europe, Kaliningrad Region Governor Anton Alikhanov stated the need to strengthen the seaborne transport to the region. According to him, seaborne transport accounts for 40% of the Kaliningrad Region’s cargo turnover. The number of ships linking the exclave with the mainland Russia increased from 2 ferries operating on Ust-Luga-Baltiysk line in early 2022 to 21 ships connecting Kaliningrad with Saint-Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, as of June 2023.
In September 2022, RF Government approved allocation of RUB 1.37 billion from the Reserve Fund to the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency (Rosmorrechflot) for subsidizing of cargo transportation to the Kaliningrad Region by the end of the year. In 2023, Rosmorrechflot is to get RUB 3.8 billion got that purpose.