Many countries know about NIBULON’s large-scale investment program to develop logistics infrastructure in Ukraine. We always hear positive comments about its successful implementation. We regularly receive delegations at our facilities that are headed by ambassadors of the USA, the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Korea, Iran, and other countries and with the participation of leading experts, including foreign experts, in the industry, who study not only the success of our company but also the problems of river transport development in Ukraine. 
Both the leading financial institutions NIBULON has been implementing a number of infrastructure projects with and governments of other countries and international organizations, such as Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, whose main goal is to eradicate hunger, highly appreciated NIBULON’s unique experience in constructing grain elevators, river terminals, self-propelled and non-self-propelled vessels, reviving river navigation in Ukraine.  
6 December 2017, Cairo (Egypt) – FAO and NIBULON signed the Memorandum of Understanding to focus on improving the efficiency of Egyptian companies involved in grain production, storage and transportation. In Egypt, FAO is engaged in solving urgent issues related to the development of the infrastructure for grain preservation. According to this organization, food losses in Egypt are up to 20 %.

From March 31 to April 6, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, general director of NIBULON, Oleksii Lalin, director of NIBULON’s shipping company, Dmytro Furda, a senior trader, visited the Arab Republic of Egypt as part of the Memorandum. They were invited by top leaders of the country.
High-level meeting
In Egypt, NIBULON’s management held a number of meetings with the Minister of Supply and Internal Trade and his First Deputy, Deputy Ministers of Transport, the leading specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, as well as with a number of industry-specific government bodies. 
“We held tens of meetings and this gave me the opportunity to compare the approaches of Ukrainian and Egyptian officials. In the eyes of these people there was a desire to learn something new, modern, effective, and interesting in order to implement positive changes in their country. I had an impression that we have been acquainted with them for decades, and we meet like friends united by many good businesses. Therefore, we will learn with them how to implement the best European and world experience in Egypt. We will achieve success thanks to this”, stressed Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
The entire week Ukrainian guests were accompanied by responsible representatives of various ministries and departments. They have solved various issues quickly and without prevarication when organizing meetings and visits to the facilities. At each facility, heads and specialists of different levels were waiting for NIBULON´s representatives, regardless of busyness and time, even if the working day has long been over. And tens of business meetings we had there began in the morning and lasted till late night. NIBULON´s delegation returned to the hotel around 12:00 a.m. Nevertheless, difficult, sometimes even exhausting but extremely informative trip has become a real revelation for NIBULON’s representatives and has radically changed their opinion on Egypt. As Oleksiy Vadaturskyy admitted, for the first time the access to all information necessary for comprehensive development of logistics infrastructure of this country has been opened for the company’s specialists, “We familiarized ourselves with the state of the shipbuilding industry and visited three shipbuilding plants. We visited port elevators and agricultural production capacities in the ports of Damietta, Alexandria, Port Said, internal elevators built in different years by foreign companies, as well as familiarized ourselves with the technological level and a production culture of these facilities. On the boat given to us, within a few hours we had the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the stream pattern of the Nile, its distributaries, and their equipment.Thus, we have comprehensively familiarized ourselves with the work of the entire infrastructure, which will be important for us in finding the right technical solution and making proposalsfor the development of logistics infrastructure in this country. And you know what the most interesting thing is? I have radically changed my opinion on the prospects for the revival of navigation on the Nile and distributaries Cairo-Alexandria and Cairo-Damietta. It is extremely necessary and technically possible to revive navigation in Egypt. But it should be done absolutely in another way than in Ukraine”. 
The Egyptian government highly appreciated experience of NIBULON in redirecting cargoes from road transport to river transport. Today’s logistics infrastructure of this Arab country reminds us of Ukraine 10 years ago, before NIBULON launched its investment project to revive rivers as transport arteries. According to the Egyptian side, 95% of freight is transported by land, 4% by rail transport and only 1% by river transport. They mainly transport bulk cargo (sand, phosphates, cement, coal) by river. Despite the fact that the annual import of grain products in this country is about 25 million tons, grain is transported in small volumes by river transport. At the same time, there are problems with over-traffic on highways, which can result in traffic jams or accidents. The Nile remains a major transport artery that has not been fully deployed, but is capable of solving most of these problems, as it happens today in Europe, the United States and other developed countries. Therefore, in Egypt, at the highest state level, they supported the initiative of NIBULON to introduce experience in the revival of inland waterways.
“At the ministerial level, a coordination council for cooperation with our company has been established. The Egyptian side put great expectations on us. They reported to the President and Prime Minister on the course of the visit. In Ukraine, we have to form our working group of NIBULON employees for more in-depth study, negotiation and mutual visits in the process of working on the project. After that, at the level of the first persons of the country a Memorandum of Cooperation with our company will be signed”, said the head of NIBULON.
According to the General Director of NIBULON, before his trip to Egypt, he shared his plans with the financial partners of the company – EBRD, EIB, IFC. They expressed their interest and willingness to support the investment projects of NIBULON outside Ukraine, in particular in Egypt, and the desire of the company to implement the best things that it has achieved in the motherland.
In addition, while staying in Egypt, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy met with representatives of the French bank Credit Agricole. They said that NIBULON has found partners and friends for the development of the company’s activities in the Arab Republic of Egypt and increasing trade turnover.
“I don’t know yet what will I start implementing a project in Egypt with, but I know for sure whom should I address myself to in order to implement the best practices in Egypt side by side with you”, stressed Oleksiy Vadaturskyy at the meeting with the French bank’s representatives. “It’s extremely important that our reliable partners, such as  Arab Bank, BNP, NATIXIS, ING, Rabobank and other banks we hope to cooperate with, work in Egypt.
The country of high quality roads
According to Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, Egypt has significantly changed in the last ten years. It’s a new country, and Cairo is a new modern city,
“As a head of the company, I’ve been to Egypt several times. I took part in international forums as a member of a Ukrainian delegation, but I wasn’t outside Cairo limits. Ten years ago I had an opportunity to familiarize myself with the infrastructure of our business partners in Egypt. Now I have an opportunity to compare Egypt outside Cairo ten years ago and now. I was impressed by the volume of construction in the country: a new Cairo, new micro-districts with modern infrastructure that are not inferior to the best European and world standards are being built. Once you get here, for a moment you forget that these places are actually recaptured in the Sahara desert; new micro-districts of Cairo are smothered with plants, everything flowers, and regularly irrigated. We saw the   Suez Canal, 75 km of which had been dug in one year, and the infrastructure built there. And we had an opportunity to cross over this canal. I recalled how I offered our Regional Administration and the city mayor to build a ferry service in Mykolaiv in order to prevent the city from experiencing transit transport. 75 km of the Suez Canal are not our 4 km on the Dnipro River, which need to be deepened in the area of 47 km of the river in order to guarantee inter-governmental agreements on depths. The Egyptian roads is a separate topic.  I can say with confidence that the new roads in Egypt are better than in any European country. You will not find anywhere in Europe the toll roads of the same quality as those built from Cairo to Alexandria or to Port Said. There are four lanes in one direction and four lanes in the opposite direction only for cars. There are areas with speed limit to 180 km per hour. There are two more separate lanes of the same quality for cargo transport. It was a real discovery for me. The country that is not the richest one in the world with the developing economy, the country that is in hard climatic conditions, and has twice as many people as Ukraine, has managed to achieve such a success. The Ukrainian roads, even new ones which are being built now, would “melt” in the harsh climatic conditions of Egypt and at such high temperatures. And the Egyptian roads seem to be lined with metal. They do not contain bitumen or other carcinogenic substances. Therefore, when you see how these people treat their country, you immediately realize that there is nothing impossible in this country because Egypt is on the right path by investing in the development of its transport infrastructure”.
The European liners are built in Egypt
The shipbuilding plants in Egypt, unlike Ukrainian ones, have heavy order books and a shipbuilding program a year ahead. It will be necessary to work hard to place an order at Egyptian plants, if required. The company’s specialists will have to analyze where it is wiser to build a new Egyptian fleet – either at NIBULON shipbuilding and repair yard in Ukraine or at the Egyptian shipyards. It is necessary to cross 2.2 thousand km in order to transport a vessel from Mykolaiv to Egypt; it is a long, expensive and dangerous way. Therefore, NIBULON’s representatives familiarized themselves with the capabilities of the shipbuilding industry in Egypt on-site. They were very satisfied with a high production culture, technological level, cleanliness, and order.
“It was nice to note that such European countries as the Netherland, Germany and others place their orders at the Egyptian shipyards”, shared his impressions Oleksiy Vadaturskyy. “Construction supervision is carried out by representatives of these countries. Not simple ships are built there, but passenger liners. It is a completely different level of technical capabilities. We saw fully automated lines, machines, a high level of shipbuilding mechanization. I picked up a lot of new information. I realized what we need to work in Ukraine on in order to make our shipbuilding yard better equipped and to meet the best world standards”.
Oleksiy Vadaturskyy admitted that when you look at fully equipped and loaded Egyptian shipyards, you inadvertently think about the destiny of shipbuilding in Ukraine, “The Ukrainian people built such enterprises in Ukraine. It is a nationwide heritage. But a group of oligarchs received them, as well as the industries, as a result of privatization. Mostly, these enterprises don’t operate and the people are unemployed. In Egypt, they managed to save various enterprises and structures, including the Suez Canal, that were built by different countries and companies, having led effective management, highly professional leaders; and now they work for the benefit of Egypt. I, as the head of the enterprise, can place a shipbuilding order and expect a good result. Moreover, there are a lot of design organizations cooperating with European countries.  It is quite possible to place orders for the design of certain vessels”.
Modern automated locks
“The newly built automated locks capable of delivering cargoes of rather large volumes impressed me. All, except for one, have dimensions of 100 m at 15 m. Of course, the Nile is not the wide Dnipro River. On the Nile there are no hydroelectric power plants except for one at the very beginning – on the Aswan Dam. But there are sufficient technical possibilities for organizing regular cargo transportation along the Nile and distributaries between the ports of Alexandria, Damietta and Cairo, as well as between Cairo and Aswan. When you look at how people are confident in the successful future of Egypt and how they build such modern locks in the absence of river transportation, you look sadly at our mighty Dnipro River, the vast water and depths; the locks are closed for six months and navigation is stopped because officials lobby for doubtful laws that will not serve the country, instead of doing something”, stated Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
During the visit, we also studied the status of bridges over the Nile’s distributaries, namely technical characteristics and limitations. All information on these hydraulic structures will be taken into account when designing future units of the Egyptian fleet.
The country needs a new fleet
During a personal meeting, Dr. Ali El Moselhi, the Minister of Supply and Internal Trade, frankly asked Oleksiy Vadaturskyy about the status of the country’s fleet. NIBULON’s General Director noted that taking into account that the introduction of river transport in the country is at the initial stage, the number of vessels is very limited and they were built a long time ago, it would be better to remelt it and build a new modern fleet; it will become exemplary even for European countries in terms of technical equipment and time of service.
“It is necessary to build a new modern fleet in order to revive navigation and river infrastructure in this country. It will be a new impetus for jobs creation both in shipbuilding and shipping. I am convinced that in a few years Egypt will be proud of its fleet and its inland water transportation, if it doesn’t lose its pace of development”, said Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
Modernization of the elevator industry
During the trip, the guests also visited the state-owned elevators. It should be noted that all these facilities work reliably, although they were built in 60’s-70’s. But today these elevators are in need of modernization. The Egyptian side is interested in NIBULON helping to solve this issue by providing real proposals for improving these enterprises.
Here is just one example. In Egypt, grain is transported by river but it is transported in small volumes. All these elevators are capable of receiving products from vessels, but the reception capacity is not large. And if a new fleet is built, new grain reception capacities will be needed.
“We understand the problem and the ways to solve it. We have experience and skills. We will be able to organize successful water transportation in Egypt”, emphasized Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
Ports are gates of Egypt
“All port authorities we met with in Egypt supported us. These are very professional and responsible people with a statist position. We have inspected all the capacities and familiarized ourselves with the technology. We have our own idea how to develop navigation in this country”, said Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
The Egyptian ports have the same problems as Ukrainian port cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson, when a port is within the city. For example, to leave the port of Alexandria, it is necessary to travel through the multimillion city, the second largest city in Egypt that was founded in IV century BC and which has a lot of historical and cultural monuments. Let’s remind at least Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Therefore, organization of inland water transport here solves a lot of issues.
Poaching and navigation are incompatible
There is one common problem in Ukraine and Egypt. Oleksiy Vadaturskyy admitted that he had learned about it while travelling on a high-speed vessel along the Nile. The vessel’s crew has a diver.  We asked if it was required for the security of transferring foreigners. The locals jokingly said that the help of divers might not be necessary. But once the Ukrainian guests were out of luck – the vessel stopped. It turned out that an illegal fishing net was wound round the screw. The diver swam under water and cut the net with the thickness of the main cord up to 30 mm. An interesting fact: every Egyptian vessel has a person who adjusts the traffic, because he knows where poaching networks are and he sees them.
In Ukraine, NIBULON has two divers who accompany the company’s tugs along the Dnipro River and the Southern Buh River day and night. Even now, during spawning, the tugs keep tearing poaching nets on the rivers, but we will tell more about it in a new article on our site.
The conclusion is one: the presence of illegal nets speaks of the absence of active river transportation in the country as these things are incompatible.
Reliable partnership
Our company systematically participates in Egyptian tenders for wheat supply and successfully works in this country. We are very grateful to our Egyptian partners: Cairo 3A, Mediterraneo, Venus Int., Adm-Medsofts, Quadra Commodities, Millcorp, Abu Dongol. We will continue working with them and expanding our cooperation. According to Dmytro Furda, for NIBULON, cooperation with Egypt is first of all expansion of sales market, an increase in the share of final consumers in the portfolio of the company’s business partners and export volumes. Secondly, this will reduce a supply chain from the Ukrainian producer to the final consumer in Egypt, cheapen logistics due to river transport.  In the future, the company plans to work not only with the above-mentioned trading companies, but also through the development of direct cooperation with domestic consumers.
“Egypt is the third largest importer of grain in the world and one of the key markets for Ukrainian grain consumption. Since 2009, only NIBULON has exported more than 12 million tons of agricultural products to Egypt. That is, we annually supply more than one million tons of grain products to this country. Therefore, they know, respect, appreciate us and count on expansion of cooperation there”, said Dmytro Furda.
Representatives of the Egyptian side admit that the experience of NIBULON in organizing efficient logistics, economically feasible and friendly to the environment, is priceless for them. Being a pioneer in the revival of inland waterways in Ukraine, NIBULON can undertake an important mission – to become a pioneer in transporting grain along the Nile in Egypt.
“Now everything depends on us. NIBULON can handle it. NIBULON can do it. And NIBULON will organize it. We will provide a professional analysis and as action plan revival of Egypt’s transport infrastructure within two months. The cooperation begins. All the most interesting and the most difficult things are ahead”, said Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
Afterword
All above-mentioned information doesn’t mean that NIBULON’s activity will be redirected to investment activity in other countries. We are Ukrainians. Our company invests in the economy of Ukraine and it will continue to do so. We will keep implementing our investment plans in Ukraine and increasing the investment volumes. To prove our words, we plan to continue constructing a network of transshipment terminals, in particular in Ternivka village (Zaporizhzhia region) and Marianske village (Dnipropetrovsk region). In addition, we reconstruct our transshipment terminal in Kremenchuk (Poltava region). We will construct a line for grain shipment on rail transport in order to minimize transport costs as the first stage of elevator construction in Khmilnyk (Vinnytsia region). The separate pride of the company is the implementation of its investment program in shipbuilding. On May 23, 2018, at the opening of the International Exhibition “Shipbuilding-2018” and the specialized exhibition “Water Transport” we will show the entire Ukraine the way our ambitious program is being implemented. Who if not we, patriots, should do this!
We want to give you an opportunity to compare the attitude towards investors in other countries and attitude of the Ministry of Infrastructure towards Ukrainian investors.  In what country is it possible that the Ministry of Infrastructure appeals to international organizations to ban the allocation of funds to a national company? And the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine is doing so. It is a shame. They treat our company with disrespect. And our company has invested USD 1.76 billion in the development of transport infrastructure and it introduces the latest world achievements in the country’s economy. It is strange when foreign investors are invited to the rivers, but their domestic investors aren’t noticed. We are accused of blocking the draft law No. 2475а, which has already been evaluated by the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. We are against the laws that don’t have a statist approach and are not intended to serve the Ukrainian company, but only to harm it. We have openly struggled and will struggle against such laws as No. 2475а. They are lobbied for by people who pursue exclusively personal interests, who plan to introduce second-hand into the territorial waters of Ukraine under a foreign flag without any conditions; this will become the last nail in the shipbuilding industry of Ukraine. The best Ukrainian specialists in this industry are practically forced to work on all continents.
We want to draw your attention to the fact how we and other developing countries treat this very important industry. Therefore, we are grateful to those indifferent people, namely to people’s deputies, regional leaders, Ukrainian cities, and patriots for the support; they advocate navigation and shipbuilding development in Ukraine.