HŽ Presented New Time-Table and Plans for 2006

The Croatian Railways (Hrvatske željeznice – HŽ) presented today their new time-table for 2005/2006, valid from 11 December. They also released their new business plans, including the ratification of the new HŽ Act, and the transformation of HŽ into a Holding consisting of four companies.

According to the president of the HŽ Board, Davorin Kobak, that division and its implementation will depend on the soon to be ratified HŽ Act.

He added that the four companies of the HŽ Holding would consist of HŽ cargo, passenger transport, haul and infrastructure. In case of the passing of the Act, the HŽ property would be divided between those four companies by June next year.

Kobak said that the appointment of the HŽ Management Board was expected to take place this week, and being asked whether he would be appointed president he answered:" We will see".

Discussing other HŽ plans he pointed out the possibility that, towards the end of this year, an agreement would be signed between HŽ and HFP (Croatian Privatization Fund) based on which three HŽ owned companies (security, engineering, catering) would be handed over to HFP for the preparation of further privatization activities.

Although there has been a cut-back in the financial support provided by the State Budget, Kobak still expects for HŽ to reach the end of 2006 without losses.

He says that they are satisfied with this year’s business results – especially considering that the business year 2004 was closed with a loss of HRK 180 million. He emphasized that this year they managed to reduce their debt towards their contractors, from last year’s HRK 792 million to this year’s HRK 400 million.

Regarding this year’s investments, HŽ managed to realize 65% of the initially planned HRK 1.77 billion. The reason for that, according to Kobak, were the delays in the decision making process.

He also reminded of this year’s top results in the area of passenger and cargo transport. By the end of the year they expect to achieve a 14.9 % increase in cargo transport (measured in t), as compared to 2004 and a 4.4% increase in the number of passengers.

The new time-table 2005/2006, which will be valid from 11 December 2005 until 9 December 2006, was presented by the deputy-president of the HŽ Board Marijan Klarić who underlined that the number of trains on international routes would be increased by 11 and on domestic routes by 22.

According to him it was very important to sate that the number of trains would also be increased in suburban transport, based on expectations of a 5% increase in the number of passengers on that route as compared to last year. (Hina).