– This is our first meeting with you. And it was very important to me that so many people are interested in the activities of our company and people who worry about us, said Oleksiy Vadaturskyy. It was really nice to communicate with you. Thank you for your personal involvement, for your awareness, for your patriotism and the desire to understand any issue. In the future, I plan to communicate with you on a regular basis by organizing similar online press conferences on specific topics. As always, we are open to communication, and you can leave any questions on our official Facebook page. Together with you, we are in fact reforming the economy and improving our society. Thank you for your support and understanding.
During the press conference, which lasted more than two hours, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy answered about 40 completely different (by their format, topic and mood of the authors) questions. Of course, that’s not all the questions we received. Therefore, after his return from Kyiv, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy immediately decided to prepare answers for those whose questions, unfortunately, were not answered on the air. All this information, as well as the text version of the press conference, has been already published on our company’s website. There is a lot of information, so we have divided it into several parts.
This part covers additional questions that were not asked during the conference: Ukrzaliznytsia; passenger transportation; navigation on the Southern Buh River; environmental aspects of the Dnipro River dredging; tax accounting; financial statements; Supervisory Board; restoration of railway communication in Luhansk region.
Ukrzaliznytsia
Recently, Ukrzaliznytsiaunilaterally has raised cost for railway transportation and has made a number of changes to the formula calculating the cost of transportation, thereby virtually depriving market participants of the opportunity to challenge or somehow influence this decision. In your opinion, taking into account all the existing problems with railway logistics when transporting agricultural products to the port, does Ukrzaliznytsia play against itself making road and water transport more attractive?
At the last year’s working meeting (I also attended it), the Prime Minister of Ukraine instructed the Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian to urgently develop and approve a transport infrastructure development strategy. It is obvious that if there is no strategy, we have chaos in the economy. Everyone is doing what he wants to do. This results in unilateral decisions, losses in profitability of the Ukraine’s economy and competitiveness in the global market. Thus, the whole Ukraine pays for this nonsense, billions of dollars are ineffective, and the economy is not being developed. In such a situation, everyone finds his own way out.  Ukrzaliznytsia does not work against itself. Agrarians need to transport grain to elevators. Restrictions are imposed on road transport, and river transport is uncompetitive (more expensive) than these modes of transport.  
Passenger transportation
Oleh Bulashev
Please tell me if your hydrofoils will sail to Kremenchuk (FB)
Batu Karaiev 0:47 a.m.
Hi! A hydrofoil by the route Odesa – Izmail is needed (FB)
Oleh Batu, answering your question, it is necessary to explain the essence of this problem. The thing is that passenger transportation by water is unprofitable. It will be unprofitable, and therefore it will not be developed, till a number of issues are resolved. In particular, it is about cancellation or compensation of excise tax on fuel for vessels, cancellation of lockage, payment for raise of movable bridges, rental payment for water use. Such changes can be made without the law adoption. At the same time, the issue of bunkering (fueling) of vessels beyond the 12-mile zone is very important. This is an absolute smuggling scheme used by offshore companies.
If these issues are resolved, transportation by river, both freight and passenger transportation, will be competitive as compared to other modes of transport and can be developed. And so Ukrainian shipbuilding plants will work; this will promote the development of other related branches of the economy.
So far, transportation by river is unprofitable. Over the past year, our company’s losses amounted to more than UAH 3 million due to several river passenger routes. 
Therefore, we have studied the best experience of the USA, Europe and Belarus in detail and have made real proposals on the ways of river transport development, hoping to be heard by the relevant ministry and Transport Committee of the Verkhovna Rada. We were supported by Association of Shipbuilders of Ukraine Ukrsudprom, Ukrainian farmers from the Association of Farmers and Landowners of Ukraine, city mayors and heads of regional state administrations, settlements along the Dnipro River and the Southern Buh River, and others.
But Transport Committee of the Verkhovna Rada and the Ministry of the Infrastructure of Ukraine don’t hear us. It’s a war against us.
In order to be heard in the MIU and to give the sector Minister an opportunity to understand the real situation, I said during the press conference that I was ready to give the Minister a hydrofoil for a month so he could study the issue and make transportation by hydrofoils profitable, for example in the area between Mykolaiv and Voznesensk (there are no locks, bridges; a simplified version so to say). But he should work in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.
Batu Karaiev 2:43 a.m.
In childhood, there was a hydrofoil operating by the route Odesa-Izmail. Now when there is a visa-free travel to the EU, there is a demand for restoration of navigation on the Danube River (FB)
Until the above-mentioned problems are resolved, it is almost impossible to construct special vessels for such transportation. To perform such trips, vessels should be of sea class. 
Navigation on the South Buh River
The result of NIBULON’s two-year work on the Southern Buh River dredging was the first million tons of grain transported (data as of April 2018).What further perspectives do you see in the transportation of agricultural cargoes along the Southern Buh River? Will it be possible to increase annual volumes? What other cargoes is it efficient to transport along this artery?
Thank you for following the activities of our company. We have already transported 2.5 million tons of grain and oilseeds along the Southern Buh River. We have also reported that, in addition to grain cargoes, we plan to transport 1 million tons of building materials. We will start transporting them this year. And we will achieve this figure in the near future. To achieve these goals, we have planned the construction of special vessels and tugs for the transportation of building materials. We are having negotiations with quarries. After that we will be able to transport large batches of building materials not only to Mykolaiv, but also to the ports of Big Odesa.
Restoration of transporting such cargoes by river has very large prospects. Unfortunately, the issue of land allocation for the berth construction is not resolved. The issue is hampered at the level of Mykolaiv Regional State Administration. All the other problems we have solved. 
Environmental aspects of the Dnipro River dredging
Oleksandr
July 3, 2018 06:19 p.m.
Some experts and non-governmental organizations have made statements that uncontrolled works performed by NIBULON on the Dnipro River would lead to an environmental disaster, as they would lead to the rise and accumulation of radioactive silt. They even have mentioned figures: the number of raised silt was estimated as equivalent to 300,000 railway cars, as well as the possibility of irradiation from strontium-90 and cesium-137. What impact will works performed by NIBULON have on people’s lives? How can they affect the yield of the adjacent land and the fish population in the Dnipro River? (Liga)
We have already denied this information:
http://nibulon.com/news/denial-of-information-posted-on-forums-and-blogs/nibulons-investment-project-is-an-opportunity-to-overcome-ukrainian-economic-crisis.html
We have conducted design works and research works: there are no radioactive contaminants. Certain financial and industrial structures are not interested in performing this works. 
And the population of fish is more affected by the illegal nets which block the way in different areas of the Dnipro River. And we are forced to accompany out tugs with divers in order to cut these nets.  Dredging is the best way to increase fish population in the Dnipro River. This question is raised by people who do not want to understand that the Dnipro River with silt and bulrush is an environmental disaster for Ukraine.
According to international agreements, the state must maintain its guaranteed depth on the navigable path of the Dnipro River (E-40), where it is necessary to perform dredging. Unfortunately, these depths have been reduced on the Dnipro River, because there were no works to maintain the depths. Due to lack of the state approach to this issue, officials of the MIU are politicking; and this is one of the items on money laundering. 
Tax accounting
Andrii Melnyk
What is your attitude to the exit capital tax as an alternative to the income tax? 
It has long been a topic of discussion. On the whole, I am positive about such changes in the legislative field and I support such initiatives. Yesterday, during a meeting with representatives of business associations and business communities, the President signed a submission to the Verkhovna Rada on the consideration of the draft law on the exit capital tax.
Financial statements
Nataliia Yukhymenko
If everything is so good and transparent, where is the financial report on NIBULON’s website? Showthenumbers.
Why don’t you publish financial statements on NIBULON’s website? Many companies do this, even non-public ones. And NIBULON describes itself as a very transparent company, but there have not been financial reports on the website. Are you afraid of the fact that experts can see the real financial condition of NIBULON and its real structure with its all offshore companies?
We are not a public company. And the legislation doesn’t provide for the disclosure of the financial statements of the company. Fortunately for you, the legislation has been amended. Next year, within the framework of the law, we will publish information about the financial standing of NIBULON on the company’s website. So be patient and do not terrorize us. We are all right. You will not hear bad news. We are a reliable borrower. Both we and the EBRD management have repeatedly denied information about the financial standing of our company. Any negative information about the financial condition has been denied.
As for experts, they can be different. There are pseudo-experts. And I don’t believe them because they don’t have field-specific education, but they always know things better than experienced specialists from the leading financial institutions and auditing companies. 
Supervisory Board
On June 1, 2018, GillesMettetal, Ex-Director for Agribusiness of the EBRD, joined the Supervisory Board of NIBULON.  What made you to increase the number of Supervisory Board members and to make Gilles Mettetal its member?  What do you expect from such a partnership?
We are very glad that such a well-known person as Gilles Mettetal has joined our Supervisory Board. Such people never work at the companies with a bad business standing. And we appreciate it. Our company plans to increase the number of the Supervisory Board members up to 5 members. Therefore, one post is still vacant. I have already answered a similar question in detail during the press conference. 
Restoration of railway communication in Luhansk region
Maksym Chyshkala 10:43 a.m.
Do you plan to restore the railway communication with the non-occupied territory of Luhansk region?
Our company, like no other one, understands the problem that has arisen in Luhansk region. All enterprises of Novoaidar, Starobilsk, Bilokurakyne, Solidarne districts were cut off from Ukraine after beginning of military actions (the railroad joining these districts with other territory of Ukraine passes through Luhansk). It was a big problem. It was a good idea when our government in the person of the Chairman of the Board of Ukrzaliznytsia PJSC, the then head of Luhansk Regional Military and Civil Administration Heorhii Tuka (now he is a Deputy Minister for Temporary Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation, which provided for construction of a new railway line between Bilokurakyne and Svatove; since the state must deal with such issues. But, seeing that the MIU did nothing in this direction and, we can say, it left the territory to fate, we urgently built an elevator complex at Svatove station. This elevator has been successfully operating for two years. Due to this project, we minimized transportation costs of agricultural products producers of the whole Luhansk region. They received additional income from reducing transport costs and reduced their stay in highways to 300 km; as now they do not need to carry grain to Kharkiv and Poltava regions.