Only four operators are subsidized and offer reduced rates
Coastal shipping of cargo between Kaliningrad and the ports of Saint-Petersburg and the Leningrad Region is carried out by 12 operators with a total of 24 ships involved, IAA PortNews Andrey Moshkov, head of the Kaliningrad Department of Rosmorport’s North-West Basin Branch, as saying at the Neva 2023 exhibition.
According to him, two more ships of Kaliningrad Shipping Company will join the line within a couple of months.
FSUE Rosmorport operates 5 ships including three railway ferries (General Chernyakhovsky, Marshal Rokossovsky and Baltiysk), and two ships Sparta and Sparta II.
Four operators are the participants of the subsidizing programme: Rosmorport, Sovfracht, Algorithm Group and Peleng LLC. Other operators have also applied for obtaining subsidies.
Sovfracht is mostly focused on transportation of cement, Algorithm Group and Peleng LLC – on transportation of dry bulk and general cargo, while Rosmorport offers reduced rates for transportation of all categories of cargo, according to Andrey Moshkov.
In summer 2022, 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. 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 for that purpose.