Ukrainian investors ready to fund construction of broad-gauge track to Gdansk, Klaipeda ports

MOSCOW. April 2 (Interfax) - The construction of a broad-gauge track from the Ukrainian border to the ports in Gdansk, Poland, and Klaipeda, Lithuania, will facilitate the delivery of Ukrainian grain and will enable Poland to make money on transit, Ukrainian media quoted Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Nikolai Solsky as telling the Polish media outlet Puls Biznesu in an interview.

If a broad-gauge track is built from the Ukrainian border to Gdansk, Ukrainian companies will guarantee the respective scale of transportation for a decade, he said.

"I'll say more: Poland will be able to build factories on its coast for processing Ukrainian grain and export finished products, which, of course, will generate more profit," Solsky said.

Ukraine has way more grain hoppers than the entire Europe, Solsky said. So, instead of investing in hoppers that could run on the European-standard narrow-gauge track, it would be better to build a 1,520mm-gauge line from the Ukrainian border to the Polish coast, he said.

There are investors in Ukraine ready to fund the infrastructural project, Solsky said.

"What needs to be done is the Polish government's decision on a facilitated procedure for this investment. There is a facilitated procedure of the kind in Poland, for instance, it applies to the construction of an oil port or a gas terminal. I know that the proposal has been analyzed. Yet, you should better ask Polish sources about the project's future," he said.