Construction of a wide gauge railroad from Ukraine to Polish ports will provide Poland with transit revenues

The availability of a wide gauge railroad from the Ukrainian border to Gdansk or Gdynia will give Poland the opportunity to make money on grain transit. There are investors in Ukraine who are ready to finance the project.

This was stated by the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Mykola Solskyi in a conversation with Polish journalists, Latifundist.com reports citing Puls Biznesu.

He noted that the mere expansion of terminals on the Polish coast does not do anything, as the width of the tracks is different. However, according to him, it is not worth investing in wagons for narrow-gauge railways.

“Ukraine has many times more railcars for grain transportation than the rest of Europe, from Romania to Portugal. This means that there is no point in investing in railcars that would run on European standard gauge tracks. The only way to solve this problem is to build wide railroad tracks from the border with Ukraine to Gdansk and Klaipeda in Lithuania. This will allow Poland to make money on transit and send Ukrainian grain to the world through Gdansk. I will say more: Poland will be able to build plants for processing Ukrainian grain on its coast and export finished products, which, of course, will earn even more,” said Mykola Solsky.

The Minister added that there are investors in Ukraine who are ready to finance such an infrastructure project. A year ago, a Ukrainian organization that unites grain, oil refining, and metallurgical enterprises wrote to the Polish government that they were ready to guarantee specific volumes of transportation in each of these industries for 10 years to come.

“The issue to be resolved is the adoption by the Polish parliament of a simplified procedure for such investment. Such a simplified procedure has already been adopted in Poland, for example, in the case of building an oil port or a gas terminal. I know that this proposal has been analyzed. However, it is probably better to ask the source,” the minister added.

Tags: Ukraine, export, Poland