DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL INLAND WATERWAYS

Abstract

The article examines the issue of the drop in transportation volumes and the decline of inland water transportation in Ukraine. For most countries of the world, inland water transport is the cheapest and most environmentally friendly form of transport, suitable for transporting large volumes of products, mainly raw materials. At the same time, the main restraining factors of the growth of the river freight transport market in Ukraine are: the high cost of transportation to the river and transshipment (first/last mile problem), the non-competitive price of river transport compared to the railway, high capital costs for the acquisition or construction of the fleet, a small potential number flights and low «rotation» speed of vessels due to infrastructural limitations – lack of guaranteed depths, risk of accidents at locks, etc. The vast majority of river ports were founded in Soviet times. Underdevelopment of the infrastructure, inefficient regulation of the domestic cargo transportation market reduces the investment attractiveness of the river industry. Currently, the resource potential is used on average by 25–30%. Restoring the Dnipro is more than just returning cargo to the river. This is the restoration of one of the largest rivers in Europe. This is the return of the Dnipro to the symbol of Ukraine as a strong and powerful state. The restoration of the Dnipro is the return of Ukraine to the family of river European states. This is a historical and economic flashback with a retrospective to the future. At one time, during Soviet times, 50 million tons of cargo were transported along the Dnipro. In 2016–2019, 19 million tons were transported. Theoretically, the capacity of the rivers of the Ukrainian basin reaches 30–40 million tons. This is a figure we can go to, because it is possible to remove a significant load from land roads The destruction of the dam and the shallowing of the Kakhovsky Reservoir made navigation on the Dnipro problematic. In order to restore it, there must be a clear economic policy, which should be Ukraine after the war, and based on this, a scheme for further economic restoration of the affected region must be drawn up. If we focus on the industrial potential of this region, it is one story, if it is about agriculture, then another, if we focus on the recreational potential, then it is a completely different strategy. Having signed the Association Agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the European Union in 2014, Ukraine assumed a number of obligations regarding the development of inland water transport, in particular, regarding the development of a strategy for the development of river transport based on the national transport policy in cooperation with the EU, the inclusion of river transport in the system of multimodal transportation and the network of priority transport routes in view of supporting the implementation of the state policy on the development of Ukraine as a transit state, the implementation of the norms of European law in the field of inland water transport into the national legislation. Adoption of the Law «On Inland Water Transport» was delayed by more than 20 years. Due to the lack of clear rules, the cargo flow on the inland waterways of Ukraine fell from 60 million tons to 5 million tons, the waterways are empty, the infrastructure is crumbling, the depths are decreasing, there are difficulties with non-transparent fees and payments, and the shipping industry as a whole is in decline. These are all losses for our economy.