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UIA’s planned 20% cut in flights this year will drag down Kyiv Boryspil’s traffic numbers by 3%,​ airport director Pavel Ryabikin predicts to reporters. This year, 14.7mn travelers will use the airport, with no season falling below 1mn a month. Last year, Boryspil handled 15.3mn passengers, making it the fastest growing big airport in Europe, according to ACI Europe. This airport association also ranked Kharkiv airport as Europe’s third fast growing airport in less than 5mn passenger a year category.
● Trains
Kyiv’s Central Passenger Station is being prepared for a 20-year concession​, according to the Cabinet of Ministers’ ‘Investment Atlas of Ukraine.’ Serving almost 100,000 people every weekday, the station has a total leasable area of 236,000 square meters. According to Minister Krikliy, one company interested in the concession is Emaar Properties, the United Arab Emirates developer of Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
● Ships
A Swiss-Georgian consortium plans to build a major river cargo hub in Kherson​, the last Dnipro port before the Black Sea. Risoil-Kherson, winner of the Kherson concession, plans to invest $15mn to upgrade cargo storage, to purchase new cranes, and to build seed and soybean processing plants. “We want to make Kherson a river hub for the whole Dnipro River,” Shota Hadzhishvili, company founder, said Friday at an Infrastructure Ministry ceremony for the port concession winners who aim to double cargo traffic in five years.
Russia has detained 2,249 ships since Kerch Strait naval clash of November 2018​, Andriy Klimenko, editor in chief of the BlackSeaNews portal. With each detention for ‘inspections’ lasting an average of four days, shippers have lost $45mn, Klymenko told a European Parliamentary delegation last week in Brussels. He said: “More than half of the ships subjected to unreasonable detentions in the Kerch Strait are related to the EU -- having a European flag, shipowner, or port of destination.”
● Cars
Ukravtodor, the state highway agency, will be able to borrow up to $800mn with state guarantees to build roads,​ under two bills signed into law Tuesday by President Zelenskiy. The Zelenskiy administration is embarking a major road building program designed to connect all 24 regional capitals with EU standard highways, including four highways radiating out of Kyiv with 130 kph speed limits. Ukravtodor may launch a Eurobond as early as the first half of this year.
Turkish construction company Cengiz has signed a memorandum of cooperation to upgrade the M14 road between Mariupol and Nova Kakhkova​ to the level of an international highway. Planner see upgrading this 350 km east-west route as key to easing the isolation of Berdyansk and Mariupol, Ukraine’s main ports on the Azov.
Turkish construction company Onur submitted a winning $488mn bid to complete the long unfinished bridge across the Dnipro at Zaporizhia,
52​ UKRAINE Country Report​ March 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com