Russian rail freight car production drops 26.6% to 4,100 units in February - Rosstat
MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) - Freight rail car manufacturing in Russia declined 26.3% in February year-on-year to 4,100 units, even controlling for the extra, 29th day in February last year, Rosstat reported.
Production in the month was 2.3% less than in January.
Production in the first two months of the year declined 20.9% year-on-year.
Russia produced 71,200 freight rail cars in 2012, the highest yearly total on record and 13.3% more than in 2011. However, just 5,100 of the cars were produced in December 2012, 2.1% less than in December 2011 and 11.3% less than in November 2012.
As of mid-December the rail car makers had orders for no more than 30,000 new cars, compared with capacity of 80,000 units a year.
The Association of Rail Car Manufacturers, set up at the initiative of Uralvagonzavod and two other major rail car concerns, appealed to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to take action to support demand for new production in 2013, by mandating the retirement of rail cars that have outlived the service life specified by the manufacturer.
However, the measure will not prevent a sharp drop in output this year, industry experts said. Olga Lukyanova, the head of the Rolling Stock Operators' Association, doubted that operators would embark upon a massive decommissioning of old rail cars in favor of new ones.
