Serbian railway company organizes transport from Piraeus to Czech Republic

(Photo: srbrail.rs)

He told Tanjug news agency that the time of travel on that route and border waiting times would be maximally shortened in order to achieve full competitiveness.

- Initially, one or two container trains will be operated weekly, and the plan is to first increase the number of trains to two a day within the next two years, and later to about twenty a day - he said.

There are about four million containers in Piraeus, and China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) is interested in organizing their transport to Czech Republic by rail, Simonovic specified and stressed that an agreement to launch the first freight train service on that route had been reached with the general manager of Greek Railways at a meeting at the international conference SHIFT 2 RAIL in Athens.

Simonovic explained that that service would provide Serbian Railways with extremely significant revenues amounting to about EUR 6,000 per freight train.

COSCO is providing about USD 750 million to make Piraeus the main port in southern Europe. They also plan to build another dock in Piraeus in order to increase the capacity of this port to seven million containers a year.