Tiraspol, 2 February. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. On 2 February 2016 the OSCE Mission in Bendery hosted a meeting of expert working groups on railway transportation and communication initiated by Pridnestrovie. The meeting was attended by mediators and observers in the negotiation process, the MFA press service reports.
During the meeting the participants discussed the problem caused by obstacles constituted by Moldova and Ukraine to the importation of goods to Pridnestrovie's business entities by railway.
It should be recalled that in the second half of 2015 the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine took unilateral measures to disrupt a commercially and logistically justified scheme of importing goods to Pridnestrovie from Ukraine by railway, which had existed since 2004.
Pridnestrovie informed the participants about the implications of unilateral actions taken by the Ukrainian and Moldovan railway authorities which resulted in serious financial losses for Pridnestrovie.
According the statement by Pridnestrovie's head of dedicated expert group, Oleg Kulbikov, the annual losses of Pridnestrovian Railway may amount to a million dollars and the losses of Pridnestrovian enterprises will amount to no less than $3.5 million.
To minimise negative implications and losses for the country's enterprises, Pridnestrovie proposed a number of effective organisation, technical and tariff measures.
In concept, the Pridnestrovian experts one more time called on the sides to return to the scheme of importing goods to Pridnestrovian economic entities which had existed since 2004, since the scheme imposed by Ukraine and Moldova is disadvantageous and, according to available data, will not be used by Pridnestrovian entities, which may lead to the partial discontinuance of cargo transportation.
Unfortunately, Pridnestrovie's initiatives did not receive a positive response from the Moldovan experts, who, referring to the lack of necessary powers, asked for extra time for studying the proposals.
Pridnestrovie's request to return to the scheme of importing Pridnestrovie's cargoes via railway stations Slobodka-export and Kuchurgan-export failed to gain understanding of the Moldovan experts
The Pridnestrovian delegation once again pointed out the lameness and lack of prospects of the imposed scheme of importation. The issue of elaborating and making changes to the scheme of transporting import and export cargoes through Pridnestrovie is currently being considered in order to legally ensure the return to an optimal scheme of railway transportation.
Pridnestrovie proposed to hold another meeting next week and looked forward to continuing the corresponding consultations.
