Transport Minister Discusses KTZ Debt Situation

Transport Minister Marat Karabayev discussed JSC NC Kazakhstan Temir Joly's financial situation. According to him, despite debts of 2.9 trillion tenge, the company operates stably, Orda.kz reports. 

KTZ's current goal is to become a notable transnational logistics company. 

To this end, KTZ is building its own terminal facilities. Hubs for cargo consolidation are being built in the Chinese city of Xi'an, in the Russian port of Selyatino, and in Aqtau. 

From this point of view, I would like to emphasize once again that KTZ is a stable company that had a net income of 134 billion tenge last year. Secondly, there is a practice of discounts on transit. The national company will provide such discounts based on its interests. Let's say we provide a discount to one of the countries and receive in exchange for the transit of our goods through the territory of another country the same value of the discounts. Such a parity mechanism has always worked, Karabayev said at a government briefing. 

He added that KTZ's operational activities do not imply a complete elimination of all debts.

According to him, KTZ does not receive money from the Kazakh budget and takes loans from foreign development banks. 

There is no understanding that it will reach zero in some time. This is a working company, it can handle all of KTZ's debts <...>. But any loan agreement, any institution that provides money looks at solvency. KTZ's current solvency is at a sufficient level to service the current debt of 2.9 trillion and to receive new debts. There will still be debts, we have new projects ahead of us, this is the purchase of locomotives for new passenger trains, the construction of new tracks, all this requires investment and money,added Karabayev.  

He also emphasized that Kazakhstan Temir Joly has recently been engaged in transportation and logistics, which allows it to increase its profitability and service debts. 

Original Author: Ilya Astakhov