Money loves the move – Newspaper Kommersant No. 173 (7374) of 09/20/2022

Russian Railways once again put forward a record investment program for approval by the authorities: 1.23 trillion rubles. in 2023, 1.5 trillion rubles. in 2024 and 1.66 trillion rubles. in 2025 (see Kommersant of September 15 and 16). In particular, it is proposed to sharply increase investments in major construction projects, primarily in the Eastern Test Site. However, investments there are historically underutilized (in 2022, records were also promised, but the investment program was cut from 1 trillion rubles to 838 billion rubles), and there is no reason to believe that this time it will be different.

I don’t have a completely satisfactory explanation why it is impossible (and was impossible before) to flood BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway with money in order to complete construction as quickly as possible: the most reasonable of the arguments are that there is a fundamental and uncovered from any sources shortage of labor and equipment for work at the Eastern range. Now, Kommersant’s interlocutors say, to master more than 100 billion rubles at the training ground. per year, most likely, is impossible, and to achieve the desired pace, it is necessary to increase the number of builders by 2.5 times (today – 13.5 thousand people). According to Ruslan Baisarov, the head of BTS-Most, 230,000 workers are needed to expand the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway to a distant 260-280 million tons of carrying capacity, and where to get them from is completely incomprehensible.

But even if the required amount of labor and material resources is found, this will come into conflict with the no less powerful program for updating the infrastructure of Russian Railways and the need to export a huge amount of cargo to the east. The state simultaneously demands to maximize transportation, build new infrastructure and keep the tracks in order. In the coming years, it is proposed to spend 420–560 billion rubles on infrastructure upgrades. per year, and there is also a long-term program to bring the track to the normative state, which will require additional investment and mobilization of labor resources.

Meanwhile, shippers are increasingly asking themselves why they are counting on the increase in tariffs under the full investment program, and when it is not fulfilled, prices remain the same. On the one hand, they can be understood: they were approved for a 7.7% increase in tariffs at the beginning of the year under a high investment program, and then, due to the emergency state of the economy, from the summer they indexed the tariff by another 11%. On the other hand, one can listen to the arguments of Russian Railways related to the increase in price tags and other unforeseen expenses caused by the sanctions regime and the reversal of logistics. Next year, the situation in the economy is likely to continue to deteriorate, and therefore the sequestration of the investment program, if it follows, will also be easily explained by rising costs. However, why not immediately make the investment program more modest, at least in physical, if not in monetary terms, is not entirely clear.