“The development of Hungarian infrastructure is required to maintain and increase the country’s competitiveness, in which the railway plays a determinative role”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó emphasised on Thursday in Budapest at the Hungarian Railways 2016 conference.
“The goal is for Hungary to be unavoidable and indispensable within Central Europe from a logistics perspective”, he explained.
Among the railway developments required in the interests of increasing competitiveness, Mr. Szijjártó mentioned the modernisation of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line to facilitate the transport of goods from the Far East to Western Europe, improving railway access to the Port of Koper, which is important to Hungary from a foreign trade perspective, and the connection of Western Hungary to the continent’s north-south railway network.
The Foreign Minister highlighted: those involved agree that the modernisation of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line is moving forward in accordance with EU regulations; the planned cost of the project is 550 billion forints (EUR 1.77bn), trains on the line, which will be expanded to two tracks, will travel at 160km/h and the railway line’s axle load capacity will be increased.
With relation to the planned modernisation of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line, Mr. Szijjártó explained that according to plan the Chinese party would submit its financing proposal to the Hungarian party by the end of October. Hungarian Railways (MÁV) and its Chinese partner will be setting up a joint venture company to manage the project, and this joint venture will be agreeing on the terms and conditions with MÁV by November, after which the parties are expected to agree on the loan construction in Riga on 5-6 November.
Mr. Szijjártó stressed that the improvement of railway access to the Port of Koper is important to exporting Hungarian enterprises and that the port is playing an increasingly important role in Hungary’s foreign trade.
At the conference, Minister of State János Fónagy from the Ministry of National Development declared with regard to the Government’s railways policy: “The railway is a social policy issue”, and mentioned among the Government’s railway policy measures the fact that it had made the financing of the railways calculable in the long term by concluding public service contracts, had reduced MÁV’s debt from 330 billion forints in 2010 to the current level of 73 billion forints and had reorganised the splintered corporation into three large companies, adding that an important task would be awaiting MÁV with the taking on of Budapest’s suburban commuter line company (HÉV), which is used by 200 thousand people-a-day.
Minister of State István Lepsényi from the Ministry of National Economy said that the action plan for the manufacturing of railways vehicles is under development.
Mr. Lepsényi told Hungarian news agency MTI that the strategy had involved determining what vehicles Hungarian Railways and the Raaberbahn (GySEV) primarily require, since we must prepare for railway liberalisation and procure modern vehicles in the interests of their competitiveness.
Parallel to requirements, Hungarian production possibilities and research & development ideas were also assessed because the Government would like to balance supply and demand and based on Hungarian market orders domestic railway vehicle manufacturing must gain strength to an extent that is also competitive at international level, Mr. Lepsényi said, indicating that some 14-15 billion forints (EUR 45-48M) will be required over the next three years to manufacture and test prototypes, and that MÁV will require 450-460 new trains over the next ten years, most of which will also be used on international lines, the acquisition of which is estimated at some 140-150 billion forints (EUR 450-480M).
At the conference, the Ministry of National Economy’s Deputy State Secretary for Customs and International Affairs Tamás Molnár said that several expert discussions had taken place concerning the electronic railway trade flow supervision system, based on which the data to be submitted will be determined. The aim isn’t to place further burdens on rail freight companies, but the Government would like to work together with the railway profession to weed out fraud in the interests of honest enterprises, he explained.
No date has been set as yet for the introduction of the system; we want to provide sufficient time to allow for preparation, Mr. Molnár added.
At the Hungarian Railways 2016 conference, former Minister of Transport and the Ministry of National Economy’s current Parliamentary State Secretary János Főnagy was presented with the railway profession’s István Sipos Award in recognition of his work in the interests of railway development.
(MTI)
