Bałtyckie porty Rosji i perspektywy ich rozwoju

Abstract

After disintegration of the USSR the State lost ca. 50% of its sea ports. The ports that remained under Russia's control are to the great extent old-fashioned and underinvested. The loss of ports of Tallinn, Riga and Klaipeda was the reason for concentration of servicing Russian international shipments on the Baltic in the three ports of St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad and Vyborg. Transhipment capabilities of Russia's sea trade ports on the Baltic are presently estimated to be 20m tons and they have turned out to be insufficient for the country. Accordingly, a decision has been taken to increase such capabilities and to build new ports. The development programme assumes that before 2005 all import and export cargoes should be serviced by own ports. The modernisation plan for St. Petersburg assumes building of new container terminals, universal and specialist transhipment complexes, including a new base for liquid fuels, sugar, heavy and large cargoes. Its transhipment capabilities are to be increased up to 29m tons yearly. Within rebuilding of the port complex several new transhipment ports come to being around Sankt Petersburg. The most important of them are: Ust-Luga, Batareynaya, Primorsk, Lomonosov and Kronshtadt. Minor ports are: Bronka, Gorskaya and Otradnoye. The rebuilding programme for Russian ports also forecasts an increase in transhipment capabilities of the ports: Vyborg up to 3m tons and Vysotsk - up to 4m tons yearly. The planned investments are a new wood port, two terminals for transhipment of metals and a general cargo terminal. Growth forecasts for the port of Kaliningrad assume an increase in transhipments up to 6.7m tons in 2000 and 11-12m tons in 2005. The disastrous condition of economy in the District of Kaliningrad and a difficult economic situation in Belarus - constituting a potential supply base for the port, suggest that such forecast should be assumed very carefully. The present political and economic situation in Russia makes a large gap between projects to build new ports and to modernise the existing ones, and their implementation. Plans concerning building new ports in Russia are often wishful declarations for potential investors. Russian investors do not have sufficient capital; Western entrepreneurs fear to invest their capital in Russia. In 1994 there was a decision to separate the operation of ports from their ownership status, i.e. the proprietary right of the State to premises, port infrastructure, grounds and waters. It contributed to flourishing of criminal activity and corruption in Russian ports, and competence of new authorities is not strictly specified.