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In his greeting to the participants of the Euro-Asian Transport Conference, the Russian Minister for Communications stressed that the presence at the conference of representatives of many countries, international organizations, financial institutions and firms demonstrates the vitality of the Third All-European Conference's decisions on extending transport to the East, and that European and Asian countries are strongly interested in creating an integrated European land transport system. In his report the Minister said: "Taking into account the geographical position of Russia, its transportation complex has great potential for supporting integration processes in Europe and Asia, and for developing economic links between European and Asian-Pacific countries. The Russian transportation system is based on railways, and Russian railways are prepared to carry a significant part of cargo flowing between Europe and Asia. Russia possesses a well-developed railway system with 87,000 km of lines, 39,000 km of which are electrified and 37,000 km are double-track. In 1997, Russian railway cargo turnover was 1,100 billion ton-km, and passenger turnover was over 170 billion passenger-km. For many Russian regions railways are the best (sometimes the only) available means of transportation. This was behind the Russian government's decision to include Russian railways in its list of natural monopolies. Therefore, the railways' main task in this period of change is finding a reasonable balance between state regulations and becoming competitive. Tt is necessary to reform and modernize the structure of Russian railways in order to de-monopolize them and make them competitive. The Russian government has already approved the concept of federal railway transport reform. The reform implies organizational separation of naturally monopolistic and competitive activities, making the infrastructure a separate organizational structure, and creating independent companies that can raise the competitiveness of railway transportation. This creates a large area for entrepreneurial activities in cargo carrying and expediting. Organizing companies that carry international passengers has a big future, as does organizing international tourist passenger trains - both between Russia and other countries as well as inside Russia traveling to national parks and resorts at such places as Lake Baikal, the Volga and the White, Caspian and Japanese seas. Together with railway reforming, the Ministry for Communications pays a lot of attention to priority investment projects. They involve bringing the information revolution and technology to transport and modernizing transport links on the basis of fiber-optics, radio links and satellite communications, and developing railway transport in general. According to the memorandums on Mutual Understanding between countries - participants in international corridors and the European Commission - work is being done on reconstruction and modernization the 9a Helsinki-Petersburg-Moscow railway line in order to increase passenger train speed. An investigation conducted by Russian experts on the 2nd Transport Corridor has shown that it is possible to reduce en route time from Berlin to Moscow from 32 hours to 19-20 hours. The Russian Ministry for Communications is also facing an important task in track upgrading on the routes from Moscow to Astrakhan and Novorossiisk, which are an important link with the countries of Central Asia, the Trans-Caucasus and the Persian Gulf. Much attention is paid to combined transport development. Combined transport is advantageous from the point of view of ecology, safety and delivery time. It is also more competitive. Such transportation was started by the "Eastern Wind" train, which runs regularly along the Berlin-Moscow line. Special container trains course regularly along the St. Petersburg-Moscow, Nakhodka-Luzhaika, Novorossiisk-Moscow, Moscow-Ekaterinburg and Moscow-Irkutsk lines. Special railway platforms for carrying trailer trains, semi-trailers, swap bodies and other vehicles have been made for combined transport, ordered by the Ministry for Communications. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, a new terminal infrastructure for rebuilding means of transport has been prepared. It is planned to organize combined transport along the Moscow-Novorossiisk, Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod and Kaliningrad-Moscow lines. The development of intermodal transport corridors in Russia demands coordination of various means of transport and organizing them into one functional system. With this in mind, a program for the activities of two Ministries which is directed at increasing the effectiveness of Russian transport infrastructure, has just been approved at a joint meeting of the Ministries for Transportation and Communications. The program's realization will allow raising the competitiveness of Russian transport and strengthen its position internationally. The Ministry for Communications attaches much attention to interaction between the European transport corridors and the TransSiberian Trunk Line. Its technical capabilities already make it possible to establish a link between Europe and the Asian-Pacific region. We have worked out and the government has approved the program for transit transport support. The Ministry for Communications has created attractive conditions for East-West transit. Tariffs have been lowered, customs and border procedures simplified, container movement is being monitored, the cargo safety problem has been solved. But in order to increase competitiveness, everyone active in the transit business must lower prices. The Russian Ministry for Communications considers the integration of the Trans-Siberian railway into the Euro-Asian railway net to be very important. It supports projects carried out within the framework of international transport organizations. The initiative of ESCAP and OSZhD on speeding-up container transport in the northern corridor of the Trans-Asian railway has been realized. On April 16-25, 1998, the Ministry for Communications together with interested countries successfully led an accelerated container train from the Pacific coast to the CIS's western border. The train arrived in Brest 8 hours earlier than planned. As a result, land transport takes 17 days less than sea transport. Carrying containers to Germany takes about 20 days (69% of sea travel time). The Nakhodka-Brest container communications demonstration project carried out by Russian railways has confirmed the possibility of rapidly delivering containers from Asia to Europe through the Russian Federation. The Russian Minister for Communications expressed certainty that the work of ministries, as well as railway administrations, financial structures and freight forwarding companies will contribute significantly to the solution of the problem of creating an effective and reliable system of land transport between Europe and Asia.
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