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| Russian Transit via Finland: to Be or Not to Be? |
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September 3 the negotiations between the Russian and the Finnish transport ministries commenced in Moscow. If the parties fail to reach an agreement on the most burning issues, the traffic between the two countries can atop altogether as early as next week. The main subject of the talks is resuming the stable transit of Russian cargo via the territory of Finland. The Russian party demands normalizing the issue of permits to Russian road carriers, and harmonizing the two countries' requirements of the road transport units weight and size. Another important issue is lifting the ban imposed by the Finnish authorities on certain categories of Russian operated road transport and drivers. Beginning August, Finland banned American produced trucks from its roads. At the same time, according to Konstantin Sharshakov, deputy director of the Russian international road carriers' association (ASMAP) North-West branch, the ban did not affect Lithuanian carriers using the same American trucks. 'This is discrimination pure and simple,' says K.Sharshakov. End of last week the Russian truckers used up the permits reserve they had for carrying cargo across Finland. The permits earlier issued will be used by the end of this week. However, according to the mutual agreement, the Finnish party owes Russian carriers at least 30 thousand permits more. The Russian party has already made a hint at reciprocal measures it may take. In the letter sent to the Finnish party on August 9, the RF transport ministry indicated that in a month it will recall all the signatures under the last year's protocol on quota allotment. This means, that September 9, all the permits granted to Finnish carriers earlier may become invalid. Under the circumstances, road carriers from third countries and the railway can try and occupy the free niche. However, K.Sharshakov doubts they are able to take over the entire cargo flow. Lithuanian and Belorussian road carriers do not have enough permits and will not be able to replace the 1,200 Russian and 800 Finnish trucks that operate on the route. As for the rail sector, it lacks the rolling stock and terminals to handle the current freight volume. Who will suffer from the recent development the first are the Finnish ports. Even now their warehousing facilities are getting overstocked, and in the very near future Russian consignees will have to switch their transit flows to other ports. The measures against Russian road carriers were first implemented after the maximal weight for Finnish trucks was reduced from 55 down to 44 tons. This affected mainly timber and log carriers increasing their primary costs by 10-20%. However, the truckers themselves did not suffer as the raised transportation costs are covered by the Finnish timber industry and are insignificant in the final production cost. The Russian truckers' association thinks that for the petty pecuniary interests of the timber lobby whole transport sector of Finland is suffering quite weighty losses. |
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