Deutsche Bahn assists Ukraine to transform railways
DB Engineering & Consulting, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, will assist Ukraine in transforming its state-owned railway operator. The German company will provide the management and technical support to Ukrainian Railway (UZ) until late 2021. Afterwards, the DB’s experts may be included into the Board of the Ukrainian operator.
The memorandum of understanding between Ukrainian Railway and DB Engineering & Consulting was signed on Wednesday, 7 February. The document defines the basis for establishing strategic cooperation between the parties in the area of the corporate transformation. “This will be a substantial and exciting challenge, which our engineers and managers are eager to solve. Our subsidiary DB Engineering & Consulting brings experience from our German network, where the company plans and manages numerous projects worth billions,” said Ronald Pofalla, Member of the DB Board after signing the document.
Three phases
The concluded memorandum suggests three phases of strategic cooperation. According to the document, the initial phase includes the negotiations and sign of the cooperation agreement as well as the development of a road map to improve UZ operations. This stage should start as soon as possible and will last within three months. The next phase is the implementation of the agreement. It is scheduled that the implementation stage will go on until the end of 2020. Afterwards, the management phase will start on 1 January 2021. It includes assistance and consulting services in the area of corporate management. The memorandum says that this phase could last up to 10 years if the parties deal with it.
German managers
As for the management phase, Ronald Pofalla implies that some Germans may be entered the Board of Ukrainian Railway. “At the beginning, it will be referred only to the consulting services. Depending on how successful they are, further steps could be implemented. And then it is quite possible that several our managers will support the Board of Ukrainian Railway. In other words, the governance of Ukrainian Railway will be, as earlier, provided by the Ukrainians but it will be strengthened by our managers,” he explained in the interview to the Ukrainian office of Deutsche Welle.
Are you interested to know more about the German rail sector? To this end, ProMedia will carry out RailTech Infra Forum 2020. The event will take place in Frankfurt on 16-18 June. Its programme is available on the following link.
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