OREANDA-NEWS  Restoration of river highways that can be used to deliver goods and people is one of the priorities for the Ministry of Transport, Russian Transport Minister Roman Starovoit said at a panel discussion at the XI International Specialized Exhibition "Road 2024" in Yekaterinburg on Wednesday.

According to him, it is necessary to understand what types of transport goods and people will be delivered to the places where the cargo base appears.

"We have had a river since the 1990s, for obvious reasons. And, of course, it is important to restore these river highways, which are used just for the delivery of inert materials," he said.

The Minister stressed that the main materials for road builders and those involved in the construction of artificial structures - sand, stone, metals - need to be transported by river.

"This is the most effective. But, considering that there was no dredging, the hydraulic structures were lost, the fleet was outdated. At the Ministry of Transport, we formed a departmental project "River Highways" at the end of last year. The Volga-Kama basin, the Ob basin and the system of rivers and lakes of the Northwest are in our area of attention. Therefore, in the near future we see such priorities for ourselves," he added.

Earlier, the Ministry of Transport reported that the total length of Russia's inland waterways is 102 thousand km. The development of river highways is part of Russia's transport strategy until 2030 with a forecast until 2035.