State subsidies depend on freight tariffs Railwaymen have provided several versions of the financial plan of the Russian Railways company for next year to the government, including the one that does not provide subsidies, the financial plan that the Russian Railways company provided to the government of the Russian Federation was drawn up in May of this year. In accordance with it, it is proposed to index freight tariffs depending on the size of the subsidy that will be provided to railway workers.

It turns out a kind of "flexible tariff" — if the cabinet approves an increase in tariffs for cargo transportation in the amount of 17.5%, then additional financial support from the state will not be needed, but the lower this percentage, the more money the company will need from the federal budget. The minimum increase in tariffs by railwaymen is expected to be 7.5%, but at the same time, according to the financial plan, 130 billion rubles will be needed. subsidies, and with a 15.7% increase in freight charges, for example, 26 billion rubles will be required from the budget.

The correspondent 's interlocutor "Gudok.ru "from the Institute of Problems of Pricing and Regulation of Natural Monopolies, such a proposal is quite reasonable and has the right to exist from an economic point of view. However, experts note that the percentages of tariff indexing proposed by Russian Railways are not related to the proposed amount of subsidies. Roughly speaking, they should be counted.  

The financial plan of Russian Railways for 2016 was commented to journalists by the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Alexey Ulyukayev. "This is being discussed (the possibility of indexing rail fares above the inflation rate). You remember our proposal for 2016 - inflation, cleared of temporary factors, that is, 7.5%. It was decided to make a certain corridor for the forecast values. We will discuss the parameters. 

We still propose the lower border of the corridor, and we will decide there," the minister said. At the same time, the Ministry of Economic Development emphasizes that it is too early to talk about the amount of tariff indexation, but the government is considering the possibility of a base tariff level for 2016 in the amount of 7.5—10% of the existing one.