Romania goals to double the month-to-month transit capability of Ukrainian grain to its flagship Black Sea port of Constanta to 4 million tons within the coming months, significantly by way of the Danube River, Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu mentioned Monday.
Ukraine is without doubt one of the world’s high grain exporters, and Russia has been attacking its agricultural and port infrastructure after refusing to increase a year-old secure passage grain hall brokered by the United Nations and Türkiye. The assaults included its inland Danube ports of Reni and Izmail.
Before Russia pulled out of the secure passage hall, the Danube ports accounted for round 1 / 4 of Ukraine’s grain exports. Grain is loaded onto barges, shipped downriver by means of territorial waters of European Union and NATO-member Romania, and onward from Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta.
By hiring extra workers to ease the passage of vessels into the Danube’s Sulina canal and by finalizing connecting infrastructure tasks – lots of them EU-funded – Romania might improve the transit capability, Grindeanu informed reporters.
“I have underlined the importance of Romanian rail, road and naval transport routes to maintain a constant flow for Ukrainian exports,” Grindeanu mentioned after a gathering with representatives of the EU, the United States, Moldova and Ukraine within the Danube city of Galati.
“It was a good meeting which will lead us through the agreed measures to raise grain transit capacity from over 2 million tons per month at present to almost 4 million tons in the coming months.”
Grindeanu mentioned Romania’s Danube administration company could have 60 pilots to take ships out and in of the Sulina canal by the top of August. An EU-funded venture to make crusing doable at evening on Sulina will possible be accomplished in October, he mentioned.
“When all these investments are made and the number of pilots increases, Romanian ports of Galati and Braila will automatically be used alongside Reni and Izmail.”
Present on the assembly, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov mentioned the Danube remained “one of the key and attractive logistics routes for export of Ukrainian agricultural products.”
“Ukraine also is interested in the possibility to organize additional places for roadside trans-shipment of vessels in the territorial waters in Romania in particular near the port of Constanta and near Sulina channel,” he mentioned.
“We also asked the Romanian side to ensure that at least 14 vessels per day to and from Ukrainian ports on the Danube through the Sulina channel will be processed.”
Source: www.dailysabah.com
