Joint Stock Company "Ukrzaliznytsia" (UZ) has approved the indexing of freight transport tariffs. In 2025, together with businesses and the government, it will continue to seek effective ways to implement tariff harmonization (alignment of tariff classes), said UZ Chairman Oleksandr Pertzovsky in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
"Going forward, in a calm working rhythm throughout 2025, we hope to return to the issue of tariff harmonization in order to gradually reduce the differences in tariffs between various types of cargo," he stated.
According to Pertzovsky, UZ aims to establish a balance and find the most effective model that will prevent a situation where cargo volumes increase, costs do not decrease, and revenues stagnate, especially as the volume of inexpensive cargo transport rises.
"Our position remains unchanged: we will return to the discussion and implementation of harmonization. However, we fully understand that we must approach this issue thoughtfully and cautiously, as certain imbalances may arise between sectors—some tariffs may become higher for some than for others. This is also a matter of state policy. The government must decide which sectors are most in need of support today," he emphasized, suggesting that the discussion will be lengthy and that harmonization will be implemented in multiple stages rather than all at once.
"As we see, this is a longer discussion. I am confident that in 2025, together with economists and various government institutions, we will engage in it very actively. Perhaps we will reach a point where we introduce tariff harmonization not in one step, but in several phases, gradually approaching the optimal model. It may take several years," said the UZ chairman.
He also noted that the issue of implementing harmonization has been postponed, as UZ required swift actions.
Earlier, it was reported that the supervisory board of Joint Stock Company "Ukrzaliznytsia" approved the indexing of freight transport tariffs, which had not been indexed for nearly two years—since the summer of 2022. During this time, the producer price index for industrial products has already reached 176.4%. Meanwhile, railway workers proposed to limit the indexing of tariffs to a significantly more moderate figure: only 37% or about 13% on an annual basis, given that 2.5 years have passed since the last indexing, as reported by the press service.
The proposals for tariff increases were approved by the UZ board on December 5, 2024.