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city, announced Kyrylo Khomyakov, the Head of the Ukrinfraproject, yesterday on Facebook. Zakarpattia’s current airport, outside of Uzhgorod, has proven unviable because the runway ends at the national border with Slovakia. A search committee recently abandoned a site at Seredenje, midway on the 40 km highway between the two cities. Local businessmen had snapped up land to resell at high prices. Mukachevo, a city of 85,000, is already a transportation hub, served by trains from Hungary and Slovakia on European gauge tracks and trains from Lviv on broad gauge tracks.
● Trains
The European Investment Bank will help pay for a 4 km extension to Dnipro’s one-line Metro, adding three new stations, the Finance Ministry reports. With the stations -- Teatralna, Tsentralna, and Muzeina -- the Metro will reach the centre of the city of nearly 1mn people. “The subway line runs from the border of the sleeping area of the city to the railway station and does not reach the central part of the city, which significantly limits the possibilities of its use,” says Deputy Finance Minister Oleksandr Kava. “Completion of construction will significantly reduce the number of traffic jams in the city.” With the EIB funding, the extension is to be completed by 2024.
Ukrainian Railways is planning to generate UAH72bn revenue from freight transportation in 2021, which is 10% more y/y, the company’s press service reported on March 16. This year, the company expects to deliver 314mmt of cargo, which is 3% more y/y. In this way, the key driver for the freight revenue increase will be the adjustment of freight rates. This is planned to be achieved via the liberalization and unification of cargo rates, the company stated. Currently, cargo rates are regulated and differentiated depending on the type of cargo.
Ukrainian Railways gets 2021 financial plan approved. Cabinet of ministers approved the financial plan of Ukrainian Railways for the year 2021, the company reported on March 31.
According to the plan presented on the company’s website, it is going to increase net revenue by 15% y/y to UAH86.5bn and double its EBITDA to UAH19.3bn in 2021.
The company plans to increase freight transportation revenue 12% y/y to UAH72.1bn, mostly by increasing effective freight rates (as turnover is expected to increase by just 1.3% y/y). Its revenue from passenger transportation is planned at UAH7.8bn, or 89% more y/y, with the recovery of passenger traffic (up 70% y/y) to be the key driver.
Its total operating costs are planned to be only 3% higher y/y, as the company expects to decrease material costs by 10% y/y and maintenance costs by 15% y/y, and it expects to see fuel and electricity costs to increase only 1% y/y. At the same time, it plans that salary expenses will increase 5% y/y to UAH34.6bn.
Ukrainian Railways plans to increase capital expenditures 2.8x y/y to UAH27.0bn in 2021. Its net debt is planned at UAH47bn as of end-2021, we estimate, which is UAH5.6bn higher y/y. Meanwhile, its
58 UKRAINE Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com