OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2010. Freight One General Director Salman Babayev attended the Eurasian Transport and Logistics Forum.

In his speech, titled "Freight One’s rate policy and its effect on Russian industry," he said, "The establishment of Freight One accelerated the development of market relations in the sector and stimulated all carriers to improve service quality."

Speaking about Freight One’s results in 2009, he said that the company’s share of freight haulage among Russia’s largest holding companies increased by an average of 7%, mostly due to the company’s prudent rate policy. During this recession, freight haulage rates in Freight One cars have fallen 10—15% below the rates of the RZD-owned (so-called "inventory") fleet. According to Babayev, "Freight One’s overall rate policy is aimed at giving clients competitive rates."

Commenting on the company’s rate policy in 2008, he noted that "the positive price environment in the world commodity markets allowed all owners of cars to work at a premium to the inventory-fleet rate, which did not significantly affect the transport component of the final price of the goods. The prices are determined by the market, and not the actions of one company. No matter how large a company is, it cannot set high prices unless the market allows it to do so," he said.

In the conclusion to his speech, Babayev spoke about Freight One’s performance, saying that "Managing a fleet of 220,000 units of rolling stock (including leased cars), which is less than 22% of Russia’s fleet, Freight One accounts for 29% of the network’s total traffic. For comparison, the other owners of rolling stock, accounting for 42% of the total number of cars, accounted for only 40% of the total haulage. He also added that other countries, Ukraine in particular, had taken an interest in the successful experience of creating Freight One.