Russia railways boost cargo handling by 7.9% in Jan-Feb, up 5.2% in Feb - Yakunin
MOSCOW. Mar 2 (Interfax) - Russia's railway system increased cargo handling in January-February 2011 by 7.9% year-on-year, the president of OJSC Russia Railways (RZD), Vladimir Yakunin, told journalists in Moscow on Wednesday.
"We are still lagging behind [the pre-crisis result for January-February]. In comparison with last year we saw growth of 7.9%," he said.
Cargo handling increased by 5.2% in February, Yakunin said.
Yakunin did not provide an absolute figure for cargo handling this year. At the same time, RZD said that cargo handling on Russia's railway system in January-February 2011 had gone up to 189.9 million tonnes roughly from 176 million tonnes in the same period of 2010. Cargo handling reached 93 million tonnes in February 2011, up from 88.4 million tonnes in the same period of 2010.
Freight throughput in January-February 2011 went up by 10.7% to 330.9 billion tonne-kilometers, in February - up 8.3% to 159.3 billion tonnes kilometers.
"One of the most important operational results for February is exceeding the pre-crisis level in handling several types of cargo - oil, fertilizer, coking coal and container freight," Yakunin said at a select meeting on Wednesday (he was quoted in a RZD statement).
Yakunin said that RZD had also revised its forecast for increasing cargo handling in 2011, raising it from 3.2% to over 5%.