In August 2023, Ukrainian Railways transported 12.2 million tons of cargo in all types of connections. This is 13.8% more than in August 2022 and in line with July 2023, despite a drop in export shipments due to the blockage of the grain agreement.
Traditionally, the leaders in terms of transportation volumes were construction materials (3.203 million tons), hard coal (2.348 million tons), iron and manganese ore (2.060 million tons), and grain cargo (1.677 million tons).
According to the Ukrainian Railways chairman of the board Yevhen Lyashchenko, the August growth of freight work indicators is due to the intensification of domestic transportation. In particular, there’s a lot of construction cargo for the restoration of the country's infrastructure.
Thus, the total volume of domestic rail transport in August 2023 increased by 34.5% to August 2022 and amounted to 8.312 million tons. Transportation of construction materials increased by 64% (up to 2.988 million tons), which is 36% in domestic traffic.
Transportation of hard coal through the territory of Ukraine in August increased by 15.2% (up to 2.284 million tons), grain cargoes – by 56% (up to 744.3 thousand tons), iron and manganese ores – by 38.5% (up to 680.7 thousand tons).
On the other hand, for objective reasons, a drop in exports by 17.7% to 3.297 million tons was recorded in August. Transportation of the main strategic cargo – grain – showed a 45.3% drop in August 2023 (to 875.8 thousand tons).
"Blocking sea ports and the grain corridor, limiting the capacity of our European partners lead to a decrease in the export of Ukrainian cargo, however, we expect a change in this trend in the active autumn transportation season and once again emphasize that Ukrainian Railways are ready to transport many times larger volumes of cargo and actively participate in building the necessary infrastructure and finding all possible ways of connecting Ukrainian shippers with European clients," Yevhen Lyashchenko stated.
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