Chairman of PKP CARGO: our future is in specialized transports

The end of a multiannual retreat. We need to change it and go forward. We hope that the European Commission will support the increase of fees for road access and that our government will fulfill its promise to cover with fees a greater number of roads in Poland. It certainly will give us more chances in competition with the road transport. And here we have to set our focus on specialized transports -said Chairman of the Board of PKP CARGO Maciej Libiszewski at a meeting with journalists.

When I left the Board of PKP CARGO in 2008, there was plenty of cash held in bank accounts and when returned to the Board by the end of 2015, I received a mountain of debt. During this time out of more than 80 thousand wagons, a bit more than 60 thousand were left, mostly in advanced age - describes Chairman Maciej Libiszewski the situation at the early stage of the new terms of office.

The Chairman of PKP CARGO mentioned that many previously released, experienced railway men returned to companies of the PKP Group, which has been taken with relief by their crew, because the ideas that previously had been implemented, were probably not bad at all but in the banking and insurance sector, however not the best in the logistics sector. As a result of activities of people having nothing to do with logistics we have been losing the market; in the second half of 2015 we have lost three very large tenders for 5 million tons of cargo and as a result of that we failed to realize the plan for 2016 and reached a decline in stock prices. In April 2016, a new Board of PKP CARGO has been completed and since that time the company wins on a regular basis. We grow from month to month in market share in terms of transport work -stressed President Libiszewski.

The President assessed positively the cooperation within the PKP Group. He thanked the President of the Board of Directors of PKP SA Mirosław Pawłowski for the assistance, among others, in approaching the issue inherited from his predecessors of the Czech company AWT, which has been probably purchased for a too large amount and whose main customer-the OKD mines-filled bankruptcy in May 2016. The Chairman of PKP CARGO stressed with satisfaction the return to good cooperation within PKP PLK. Good railway men returned also to this company and they've started to talk about problems of carriers in a completely different way. As a result of such conversations, for example, they came up with the proposal that for the period of renovation and closure of line no. 7, if we take the funicular route, which is perhaps even two or three times longer, from the mine Bogdanka to the power station Kozienice that we pay only for the primary route. Of course, we will pay costs of crews, fuel, electricity, but at least here PKP PLK stands up to the carrier with a lot more understanding than it was in previous years. It is very important that PKP PLK indicates the need to use in the work of the track finished items, which greatly shortens the construction process - noted President Maciej Libiszewski.

Concluding the year 2016, Chairman of PKP CARGO pointed back to the area management, which resulted in being closer to the client, transferring much greater powers to the directors of divisions, activating trade divisions and a much wider market entry. The result was an increase of the share price, which from the historic minimum in April 2016 increased at the beginning of 2017 by more than 90 percent. We took up the social dialogue again and finished a collective dispute of 1.5 years at PKP CARGO after a few rounds of negotiations. The social party showed here far-reaching maturity given the woeful State of company finances. For this attitude I wanted to thank the social party - said President Libiszewski.

Speaking about the plans for the future, President Libiszewski appointed besides the Baltic region, also the Adriatic and Black Sea region, as the directions of greater involvement of the PKP Group. The largest Polish freight carrier is going to take also part in the reconstruction of the national railway infrastructure, and when this process is complete, take a proactive approach on the specialist market - which is food, intermodal, automotive, chemical, construction and others.

This is what we must strive to, in order to maintain a presence on this market. The following period we must use to adjust our train compositions, because they need it badly due to their age. 12 Vectron Siemens locomotives, which we have acquired until now, will not fix the issue of nearly a thousand trains that run every day. This still is not the scale, but it is a light in the tunnel -stressed President of PKP CARGO.

In December 2015 we announced the end of a period of retreat. Let me remind you that the Polish freight rail transported approximately 500 million tons and had approximately 300 thousand carriages. We want to tie in to this and go forward. The European Commission announces an increase in charges for access to roads. Our government is working on including more roads in Poland into the system of fees. Railroad workers are raising charges for all railways. We were never opposed to the fact that we have to pay for the rail road. We've always done it with understanding, but we thought that it should be balanced, and not as one of the private carriers had calculated - a 12-14 times higher charge for railway than roads. In this situation, the competition is very difficult -summed up President Maciej Libiszewski.