The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on July 11, 2013 approved a draft resolution on the approval of a strategy for the development of Ukrainian seaports in the period until 2038, which will allow considerably increasing cargo handling at Ukrainian ports, the press service of the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry has reported.
The press service said that the document defines the key directions of the sector development for the next 25 years.
The main goals of the seaports development are the ensuring of the comprehensive development and the increase in competitiveness of the port sector, the proper maintenance, management and use of strategically important facilities of the port infrastructure; the attraction of private investments for a long period of time to develop port infrastructure; the creation of the conditions for carrying out economic operations at ports and for getting equal access to services provided at ports; the ensuring of the safety of navigation, people’s health and economic operations at seaports; the safety exploitation of port infrastructure; and the ensuring of ecological safety in line with international standards.
The strategy also says that the specialization of each port will be defined and the ports will be developed in line with their specialization, which will allow drawing up the key investment projects, the realization of which by concessionaires will allow ensuring the ports’ development and growth in competitiveness, taking into account the advantages and specifics of each Ukrainian port.
The specialization of the ports will be defined using the following criteria: the share of cargo handling, the territorial closeness of the seaport to the raw material bases and production facilities, the abilities of the existing infrastructure, the availability of promising territories for the development of the seaport and the optimal ways for cargo shipment.
In the long-term outlook, the realization of the strategy will allow boosting the annual cargo handling to 210 million tonnes; attracting private investments in the size of Hr 26 billion to develop port infrastructure facilities; creating the facilities for handling at least 250 million tonnes of cargo a year at ports and ensuring the efficient development of the port infrastructure facilities; increasing the efficiency of the use of the trans-shipping complexes of seaports to 80 percent and creating 15,000 new jobs.
“The strategy will be realized using funds of investors, targeted loans taken from banks, funds of companies irrespective of their forms of ownership and funds of the Administration of Seaports of Ukraine state-run enterprise, railways and railway companies,” Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Kozak said
