OREANDA-NEWS. November 16, 2007. Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian Railways, said the Company would investing 1.3 trillion roubles following a cabinet meeting on the course of structural reform in rail transport and Russian Railways’ financial plan and investment programme between 2008 and 2010.

The projects from the financial plan and investment programme up to 2010 had been developed in accordance with strategy to develop rail transport in Russian until 2030.

Yakunin said that Russian Railways’ investment program and financial plan until 2010 reflect the results the Company had already attained, as well as the future prospects for the third stage of structural reform, including the beginning of the First Freight Company’s operations and other subsidiaries, as well as revenue from the sale of shares and optimisation of the asset structure.

The company head also emphasised that these documents were developed in strict accordance with the tasks laid out by President Putin in his State of the Nation Address to the two houses of parliament.

These include, above all, eliminating infrastructural bottlenecks which are slowing economic growth, increasing the efficient use of natural resources and modernising and developing high-tech industrial production.

“The Company plans to resolve the problems before it by implementing efficiently our plan to invest in our top priorities, with 69% of available funds going on the development and modernisation of infrastructure and 29% on renovating rolling stock”, said Vladimir Yakunin.

“If in recent years,” he continued, “we have had a shortfall of investment, the Company has now done everything possible to ensure that investment opportunities are in line with development needs. Russian Railways has the highest long-term credit rating among Russian companies, which will enable us to achieve a net increase in our credit portfolio of 280.3 billion roubles by the end 2010. Due to the favorable economic forecast and the high growth rates we expect to see in the transport sector, the Company will not only be able to achieve a “balanced budget” with no losses over this period, but also double its investment budget to 1.3 trillion roubles (ex. VAT) in comparison with the previous three-year period,” noted the head of Russian Railways.