Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine and Minister for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, and Lilia Dabija, Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development of the Republic of Moldova, signed the Protocol on Amendments to the Agreement between the Governments of Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova on Railway Transport.
The Protocol provides for the simplification of control procedures for the railway transit of goods with a point of departure and destination in Ukraine or the Republic of Moldova, or when the point of departure or destination is in a third country, such as Romania. In other words, non-stop travel through the territory of Ukraine between the Fricatsei-Etulia and Reni Giurgiuleşti checkpoints is introduced, which will increase the volume of cargo transported by rail.
"The introduction of non-stop traffic between the Fricacei-Etulia and Reni Giurgiuleşti border crossing points in both directions will allow us to speed up and increase the volume of rail transport. These are important changes for the further development of the entire Danube port cluster. At the same time, we are focusing our efforts on developing the infrastructure at the seaports of Izmail and Reni to expand the range of cargo.
"Last year, we managed to transship over 16 million tonnes of cargo. This is three times more than in the pre-war period. This year we plan to further increase the volume of traffic across the Danube River," commented Oleksandr Kubrakov.
As a reminder, joint control was introduced at the Basarabeasca checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Moldovan state border on 22 March 2023.