OREANDA-NEWS. January 19, 2011. Ukraine’s ports plan to boost investments by 5.7 times this year to UAH1.02 billion to upgrade handling equipment and facilities, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine said citing the State Service of sea and river transport.

Almost 60 million hryvna (vs 30m in 2009) will be spent for the development of rail infrastructure at the ports.

The port of Izmail set aside 6 million hryvna for procurement of new handling equipment, Mariupol port projected to spend 31,9 million hryvna, Yuzhny port - 75.1 million hryvna, Port of Ilyichevsk - 214.8 million and Port of Odessa – 591,8 million.

 "We need to create approaches to ports, increase the number of access roads, that is, to prepare the entire infrastructure of our country - from the shipper to the consignee. This all must be modernized", said Borys Kolesnikov, Vice-Premier and the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine.

There are currently 18 state-owned seaports operating on the territory of Ukraine.