Ukrainian carriage building may cease to exist early next year
Since the beginning of the year, the production of railcars at Ukrainian enterprises has decreased by more than 1,7 times, and the number of operating enterprises in the industry has almost halved.
Acting Sales Director of the Kryukov Carriage Works, Yuriy Brusnik, announced this at a press conference in Kiev, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Problems in the industry have led to the fact that the domestic railcar industry is on the edge of survival. Our experts analyzed the decline of the transport industry as a whole using the example of railcar construction over the past 9-10 years. Of the 18 enterprises operating in 2011, 2019 remained in 12. And over the seven months of 2020, this figure dropped to 5 enterprises, almost half.
According to our calculations, if we do nothing at the level of our state, then from the beginning of next year the car building industry may cease to exist in Ukraine.
Our main problem is our employees. Today there are 12 thousand of them left, but in 2011 there were almost 32 thousand. Over the first 8 months of 2020, the wage fund at KVSZ decreased by 60%, as at other railcar-building enterprises.
These figures are obtained from the sales volume of freight cars. If in January we still managed to produce 417 cars, then in 8 months we produced only 242 cars. The reduction in production is more than 1,7 times,” said Yuri Brusnik.
According to him, the main cause of the crisis was the massive import of used cars from Russia, which are used to replace Ukrainian cars that are out of service. Only a large government order can save the Ukrainian carriage industry.
“We need an immediate order of at least 12 thousand cars. The investment effect will be 2,5-3 times, i.e. every hryvnia invested in carriage building will ensure domestic demand and growth of domestic production by 2,5-3 UAH,” Yuriy Brusnik implores the authorities.
Ukrainian railcar manufacturing may cease to exist early next year.