20 декабря 2023 — 12:00
The government of the Kaliningrad Region will strictly control the transportation of only sanctioned cargo by ferries of the Ust-Luga -Baltiysk line, Interfax writes. This was announced by the Minister of Infrastructure Development of the region Evgenia Kukushkina at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
"At a meeting with the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, which took place today, we, the regional government, were asked to pay attention to such an issue. Ferryboarding should be carried out exclusively by carriers of sanctioned goods. This is due to the fact that since the beginning of 2024 Lithuania has been opening new quotas for rail transit of goods on its territory," Kukushkina said.
The representative of the Kaliningrad Railway noted that since the beginning of 2023, carriers have chosen Lithuania's quotas for the delivery of goods to the Kaliningrad region by 45.3%, and quotas for the shipment of goods from the region to the main territory of Russia by 47%.
"The forecast is that by 2024 the region may lose the volume of quotas for the delivery of about 350 thousand tons to the region. At the same time, 2.472 million tons could be brought to the region within quotas this year," the representative of the railway said.
The authorities of the Kaliningrad region have long urged carriers to actively use the railway to deliver various goods to the region, including those for which there are restrictions in the form of quotas. But companies, for various reasons, began to use the sea route, placing goods in containers, the transshipment of which is subsidized.
The importance of the Kaliningrad sea freight line increased after Lithuania introduced restrictions on rail and road transit of sub-sanctioned goods in the summer of 2022 with certain reservations and quotas for their volumes. At the same time, transit of sub-sanctioned goods by road through Lithuania is prohibited.
As of mid-December, a total of 25 ships and ferries provided sea cargo transportation between the Kaliningrad Region and the main territory of Russia. They operate on several regular lines: Ust-Luga - Baltiysk, Bronka - Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg - Baltiysk, St. Petersburg - Kaliningrad.