According to the order of Russian Federal Tariffs Service rail freight tariffs are raised from April 1 by 1%, Interfax reports according to Gudok.ru. The resources to be received by Russian Railways OJSC from a 1-percent tariff indexation for a 3-year period (RUR 25 billion) will be spent for three Olympic projects of Russian Railways in Sochi.
The first project is aimed at improvement of Tuapse-Adler sector capacity. The second one implies construction of 4 specialised warehouses for non-ore materials. The third project is to arrange intermodal passenger transportation from Sochi airport to Olympic facilities. However the hike is not to cover operational costs considering fast growing prices for industrial goods (fuel, ferrous metal, electricity).
Russian Railways has repeatedly told about its extra expenses not considered when calculating the tariffs. Las week, Vadim Morozov, Vie-President of RZD OJSC, told the Transport Ministry board that in 2007 growth rates of rail freight tariffs made only half of general transport tariff hike (8% and 16.7% respectively). Besides, they were 1.5 times below the inflation (11.9%) and over 3 times below the growth of prices for industrial goods (+25.1%).
According to RZD forecasts, the company’s operational costs will grow by RUR 67 billion because of the difference between the planned and real inflation rates.