OREANDA-NEWS. October 10, 2013. Vice Prime Minister Oleksandr Vilkul has discussed with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Latvia to Ukraine Mr. Andris Vilcans bilateral cooperation in transportation and transit area.

"Latvia's political support for European aspirations of Ukraine takes place simultaneously with the development of economic relations between our countries. Development by Ukraine and Latvia container transportation via corridor between the Black Sea and Baltic Sea improves the efficiency of the European transport system," Olexandr Vilkul said.

He noted that an important part of this is the implementation of joint projects, including ZUBR container block-train, following the route Illichivs'k-Tallinn across four countries - Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Estonia.

ZUBR container block-train began to run in February 2012 in Ukraine. More than 6.6 thousand containers have been transported or more than 11 thousand TEU during this time.

Implementation of the ZUBR project allow carriers to make transportation at reduced rates, same for all participating countries, and get an additional discount of 20% of common tariffs for import-export traffic. Also the simplified procedure of customs and border inspection is used. This allows the train to overcome route length of more than 2000 km for 58 hours while by road - almost twice as long.

The parties also discussed the possibility of creating a coordination center of the ZUBR project in Ukraine to improve its implementation.