LDz Chairman of the Board Rinalds Pļavnieks: “Symbiosis of LDz and Latvian ports opens up good opportunities to attract cargo from Central Asian countries”
Last week, Chairman of the Board of SJSC “Latvijas dzelzceļš” Rinalds Pļavnieks was part of a delegation accompanying Minister of Transport Jānis Vitenbergs on an important visit to Kazakhstan, during which meetings were held with customers and events took place to promote cooperation with Kazakh rail companies and other key partners.
Rinalds Pļavnieks, Chairman of the Board of SJSC “Latvijas dzelzceļš”, comments: “Freight transportation in Central Asia currently has great potential, therefore I am pleased that LDz is creating a symbiosis with all three large Latvian ports to offer our partners efficient transportation, transhipment and other related logistics services. LDz has already established successful cooperation with a number of Kazakh companies that choose the Latvian transport corridor for shipping their freights, and we are putting in a lot of work to fully utilize freight transportation potential offered by Central Asian countries, drawing new customers and increasing the existing customers’ freight transportation volumes.”
During Rinalds Pļavnieks’ meeting with Aleksandr Khmelev, Director General at Kazakhstan’s largest non-ferrous metal producer Kazzinc, agreement was reached on a possible increase in the volume of Kazzinc products – copper, lead and other metals – transported on Latvian rail network.
Also during the visit, Rinalds Pļavnieks visited Almaty section of the national railway company of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan Temir Joly, where the Latvian delegation and representatives of the Kazakh company discussed cooperation opportunities in rolling stock repairs and other areas. Likewise, at a meeting with Karat Tapalov, Deputy Director General of Kazakh railway logistics company KTŽ Express, measures were discussed to further increase the amounts of freights shipped to Latvian ports.
While in Kazakhstan, the delegation accompanying Minister of Transport Jānis Vitenbergs also participated in the international EU-Central Asia Economic Forum, which brought together market players and representatives of the transport industry from Central Asian and European countries. The forum discussed deepening transport links between the countries of the European Union and Central Asia.
At the end of the visit, the delegation met with European Commissioner for Trade Valdis Dombrovskis to discuss development prospects of the Latvian transport industry.