“We are the only country in Europe where the railroad has not seen a dime from the government for development. I had expected the technocratic government to take some steps to stimulate the industry, but they have been doing nothing, they are on stand-by. Nobody is paying any attention to railroad traffic conditions (…),” Valer Blidar told ZF.
The entrepreneur travelled as far as Brazil in search of contracts to keep the plant with 800 employees in business. Astra Vagoane Calatori was the fifth largest Romanian-held exporter in the country in 2014, but was not among the 50 largest exporters last year.
The state-run railroad operators’ fleet is more than 20 years old in Romania, while the average travel speed of freight trains dropped to 19 kilometers/hour, which shows how little interest there is in the country’s railroad transportation sector.
“Last year was very difficult, unlike 2014 when we delivered railroad cars to Brazil. We barely managed to make a profit, to stay afloat.”
Astra Vagoane Calatori posted EUR65 million revenue and EUR9 million net profit in 2014.
Early this year Fulger Popescu, the chief operating officer of railroad car manufacturer Astra Rail Industries’, which had 2,500 employees and posted EUR135 million revenue last year, too, said there had been no order for new freight cars in Romania in the past 11 years.
The officials of Softronic (Craiova), the only maker of electric locomotives in Eastern Europe, too said there was support for local manufacturers in Romania.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)