site.btaExperts: BDZ Won't Recover Without Investments

Experts: BDZ Won't Recover Without Investments

Sofia, February 27 (BTA) - Bulgaria has its first high-speed railway line, stretching for 150 km between Krumovo and Svilengrad decades after Central and Western European countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and Taiwan.

Passenger trains will reach speeds of between 160 km/h and 200 km/h, and freight trains up to 120 km/h. The average speed over the remaining 7,000-km rail network is a mere 40 km/h in the 21st century.

The Bulgarian State Railways, established before over 130 years, have been plagued with problems for many years. Last week the elite of the Bulgarian railways met to seek a recovery from this situation.

According to Peter Bunev, leader of the Trade Union of Railway Workers in Bulgaria, personnel changes without state investments won't bring a recovery to the Bulgarian railways. In a comment for BTA, Bunev said that according to him the solution lies in clearing the 250 million leva debt and a subsequent investment plan over 7-8 years.

Prof. Yordan Mirchev, former chair of the parliamentary transport committee and chairman of the Movement European Development of Bulgarian Railways said that the decades-long crisis in the railways was due to frequent political and personnel changes. According to Mirchev the railways are facing enormous challenges and they are not down only to the condition of the rail infrastructure.

If BDZ is left without freight services this will plunge the railway infrastructure into a deep crisis, because the main bulk of revenues for the National Rail infrastructure Company comes from fees. In view of the critically low freight volumes, these revenues are estimated at 80-90 million leva annually.

Funding available under the EU-backed Operation Programme Transport and Transport Infrastructure totals approximately 2.6 billion leva. Some 210 million leva are set aside for project proposals.

According to newly appointed BDZ Executive Director Georgi Drumev debts that have acccumulated over time are the reason for the financial dire straits of the company and over the past five years the BDZ management has tried to pay off these debts with funds of the railways.

Caretaker Transport Minister Hristo Alexiev was adamant that BDZ debts have to be refinanced and said that negotiations with creditors and bondholders are under preparation.