InterRail Newsflash - InterRail Holding AG

InterRail Newsflash
No. 03-04 / 2014
News from the InterRail group
InterRail and KTZ Express decide closer cooperation
The InterRail Group and joint stock company “KTZ Express” (KTZE), a 100% daughter company of
the Kazakh Railways, have now significantly strengthened their cooperation. On April 21st, KTZE
President Sanzhar Yelyubayev, Howard Lamb and Hans Reinhard signed a contract covering the
promotion of international cargo flows between Western Europe and Kazakhstan. Among others,
enhanced, high-quality forwarding and logistics services for multimodal traffics with Kazakhstan
are to be made fully available; joint marketing and advertising activities are planned, too. As per the
newly agreed contract, InterRail now acts as an agent of the national multimodal operator of Kazakhstan, KTZ Express, on EU territory and in Switzerland.
The focus of the contract between
InterRail and KTZ Express lies on
forwarding and logistics services for
rail traffics in the Eurasian context.
Both companies have been collaborating in this field for quite some time
already.
As agreed, the portfolio of services
InterRail offers for these traffics in
Western Europe ranges from the coordination of orders to the negotiating
of competitive freight rates, container
management, and return of containers. A special emphasis here lies on
the inclusion of the container block
trains Ostwind/Westwind that are
operated by companies belonging to
the InterRail Group.
Moreover, InterRail and other corporations linked to the Group will
contribute their experience, but also
their offers for combined rail-sea traffics via the Baltic ports as well as for
multimodal transports along the “New
Silk Road” via the Black Sea and the
Caspian Sea and other regions on
the route from Europe to Kazakhstan.
As one further option, the contract
also indicates the joint development
of new products in multimodal traffic.
The high emphasis on multimodal aspects and complex logistics solutions
in the agreement between InterRail
and KTZ Express is due to the function of this company in Kazakhstan’s
transport and logistics sector. KTZE
was founded in 2011 by Order of the
President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, on the
basis of the JSC “National Company
Kazakhstan Temir Zholy / KTZ” as a
national, multimodal transport logistics services provider with internationally comparable standards.
The aim was to create a complex
center for the provision of services
in the fields of rail, road, and air
freight and other transport modes in
order to develop the country’s transport potential and to position Kazakh
products on external markets. The
company operates branch offices in
China, countries of CIS, Baltic and
EU.
As a national railway company, the
mother company KTZ offers rail
freight services, and owns and manages rolling stock on Kazakh territory
and in other countries with 1520 mm
gauge tracks.
In the interest of the development of
complex logistics services, KTZ Express was also assigned the direction
of the international sea trade port Aktau on the Caspian Sea, the special
economic zone “Khorgos – Eastern
Gate” at the new Kazakh-Chinese
railway border crossing Khorgos,
and of eleven airports.
The company thus integrates today
rail freight, air and sea freight and
road transports, the port and airport
infrastructure, but also the developing network of terminals and transport logistics centers in the country.
KTZ Express offers door-door transports and is directly involved in the
development of logistics chains.
“All in all, owing to the comprehensive
approach, conditions are good for a
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IMPRINT Public Relations - InterRail Holding AG, St. Gallen / Switzerland
Phone: +41 71 227 15 15, Fax: +41 71 227 15 30, [email protected], www.interrail.ag
InterRail Newsflash
No. 03-04 / 2014
positive and promising development
of the transport and logistics sector
in Kazakhstan”, says Hans Reinhard.
“Kazakhstan is turning into an important hub for the whole region and
for Eurasian traffics. For InterRail,
Kazakhstan is therefore a significant
platform for our traffics from and to
Central Asia as well as for the transit flows between China and Europe that we want to promote more
intensely by reliably fulfilling our contract with KTZ Express”, adds Reinhard emphasizing the meaning of the
cooperation between the two parties.
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IMPRINT Public Relations - InterRail Holding AG, St. Gallen / Switzerland
Phone: +41 71 227 15 15, Fax: +41 71 227 15 30, [email protected], www.interrail.ag
InterRail Newsflash
No. 03-04 / 2014
News from the InterRail group
Bridging the gap at Grossbeeren
„Ten years of Intermodal – bridging the gap to the future” was the motto of an event held on April 9 at the
Grossbeeren intermodal terminal.
with the hosts, they presented their
services to the 150 guests from the
field of logistics, economy, and politics in an accompanying exhibition.
As further highlights, participants were
offered a guided tour of the terminal, a
visit of the Albatross Express locomotive, and the exploration of a portal
crane.
The Minister for Infrastructure and
Agriculture, Jörg Vogelsänger, inaugurated the event marking the opening of a new bridge that connects the
cargo transport center with the second and last extension zone (an area
of 40 hectares). At the same time,
the Deutsche Umschlag-Gesellschaft
Schiene Straße (DUSS) and TFG
Transfracht celebrated their ten-year
jubilees at this location.
InterRail Services GmbH (IRS) and
other rail operators as well as representatives from the sea ports
bremenports, Hamburg Port and
JadeWeserPort attended. Together
From left: Sabine Harnisch (IRS Berlin)
and Marlies Kaulich (Managing Director
IRS Berlin)
JCL and InterRail sign exclusive partnership
Effective February 1st, 2014, JCL Logistics Benelux B.V. and InterRail Holding AG signed an exclusive partnership contract for cooperation within the European, Russian, and Asian railway networks.
The cooperation has an obvious aim:
combining know-how and experience
in rail freight and exchanging the right
contacts in the different countries and
regions in order to expand, or add
to, the portfolios of both companies.
JCL is very ambitious: „We believe
in this growth region on the Eurasian
continent. In countries like China,
India, and Russia, there is huge potential for growth. We believe in this
growth potential and want to participate in it.”
„You can’t ignore InterRail as one of
the leading railway operators in this
region when talking about rail trans-
ports”, says Erik Groot Wassink,
Managing Director JCL. “Often, in
these countries, there are big projects when investment capital are
suddenly released on the local markets.”
„You can decide on road transport,
yet rail freight is not only cheaper but
also safer, especially, when you have
a reliable partner who takes care of
it.” Howard Lamb, CEO InterRail,
looks forward to successful cooperation: “Before the contract, we did not
have any adequate sales structure
in the Benelux countries. Thus, this
cooperation is the ideal solution. Of
course, we offer active consulting
and support concerning commercial
activities.”
Owing to the partnership with InterRail, there are now diverse routes to
the markets of the Caspian region,
the CIS and Russia: short-sea via
Riga, from there via rail or road to
Malaszewicze and then via Russian
railway or short-sea, southern route,
across the Bosporus, the Black Sea
and the Rostov-Don Canal to the
Caspian Sea.
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IMPRINT Public Relations - InterRail Holding AG, St. Gallen / Switzerland
Phone: +41 71 227 15 15, Fax: +41 71 227 15 30, [email protected], www.interrail.ag
InterRail Newsflash
No. 03-04 / 2014
News from the railway market
OTLK ready to go
As per information from the Government of Belarus, OTLK (Transport
Logistics Association of Container
Operators of the Customs Union)
is to be founded already in the first
half of 2014. At a meeting in mid-May
with RZD President Vladimir Yakunin,
Belarus Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich said in informal talks: „The
parties involved in the project have
confirmed the draft of the statute and
the internal documents of OTLK and
adjusted the draft of the business
plan.”
In a first phase, it says in the memorandum signed by the three railways
involved, RZD will bring in the shares
of its daughters Transcontainer
(50%+2 shares) and RZD Logistika
(100% -1 share). BC and KTZ will, as
planned, at this time contribute to the
capital fund with 1 million USD each.
Thus, the RZD share in OTLK would
be at 99% for the time being, while
BC and KTZ would only hold 1 % together.
Plans are that, in a second phase, BC
and KTZ introduce their assets. According to the agreement, from KTZ
that would be 50 % of the Kaztransservice shares and the terminals at
Dostyk and Altynkol stations, from
BC, the freight terminals at Brest and
other assets. Independently of the
concrete shares in the capital fund at
any given moment, the three participating countries want to lead OTLK
on a basis of parity.
There have not yet been any official
statements from Kazakhstan issued.
Transparency concerning the practical
handling of the cooperation and concerning specific OTLK market operations agreed is yet to be achieved.
In phase three, as per the information
from the Government of Belarus, the
three partners’ shares are to be adjusted over the next seven years so that
each partner holds one third.
Operation of Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan corridor announced for this
autumn
The transport of transit goods via
the new railway connection IranTurkmenistan-Kazakhstan along the
Eastern shore of the Caspian Sea is
beginning this autumn, Iran’s Minister for Transportation and Housing,
Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi, announced
at a visit of Gorgan in Northern Iran.
There were talks to this effect at the
moment between the Kazakh and
Iranian railway companies, he said.
The new corridor connects Gorgan in
Northern Iran, the interchange with
the Iranian main railway network, to
Uzen in Kazakhstan. From Gorgan
the corridor goes via Incheh Borun
at the Iran-Turkmenistan border, then
via Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek in Turkmenistan to the interchange with the
Kazakh railway network.
The new corridor allowed tapping
into additional transit potential from
Central Asia, but also from Russia
and China towards the Persian Gulf,
Akhoundi emphasized. The 80-kilometer Iranian leg would be finished
within the shortest time, he added.
14 bridges have been built for the
project; a transport terminal at the
Incheh Borun border crossing has
been equipped. The commissioning
of the new corridor comes at a con-
venient time: The loosening of the
sanctions against Iran has led to an
increase in freight transit demands.
The majority of goods go via road, it
is true, but Iranian railways too report
increasing interest on the side of the
shippers especially from Central Asia
to the Gulf ports.
Last fall, Minister Akhoundi announced Iran would increase fourfold
its total freight transit volume from
12 million tons per year to 50 million
tons in the near future. Further railway projects are to contribute to this
growth.
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IMPRINT Public Relations - InterRail Holding AG, St. Gallen / Switzerland
Phone: +41 71 227 15 15, Fax: +41 71 227 15 30, [email protected], www.interrail.ag
Interrail Newsflash
No. 03-04 / 2014
News from the raIlway market
Logistics center to be built at Chinese-Russian border
In the Chinese city of Manzhouli, Autonomous Region Inner Mongolia,
construction is to begin, before the
end of 2014, of a logistics center dedicated to commerce and trade with
Russia; it will be the largest center so
far. On an area of 73 hectares, it is
to bundle such functions as transport,
loading and unloading operations,
warehousing, customs inspection and
declaration, trade shows and so forth.
As the management of Manzhouli
border control communicates, the
logistics center at the biggest border crossing between Russia and
China is designed for a wide range of
goods. It is to support and enhance
first and foremost the trade between
Chinese companies and the Russian
market, but also, ultimately, the trade
with Europe.
more News
TransRussia 2014
From April 22 to 25, 2014, the TransRussia 2014 took place at the Crocus Expo Exhibition Center in Moscow. The
InterRail Group participated, as always, with a booth of their own. Here are some pictures of the occasion:
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IMPRINT Public Relations - InterRail Holding AG, St. Gallen / Switzerland
Phone: +41 71 227 15 15, Fax: +41 71 227 15 30, [email protected], www.interrail.ag