ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT STATE OF THE CONTAINER TRANSPORTATION MARKET AND WAYS OF ITS DEVELOPMENT ON THE CHINA-UKRAINE-EU ROUTE

Abstract

Considering the globalization of international market relations, the article deals withthe modern market for international container traffic on the China-Ukraine-EU route. Through myresearch, it has become clear that the international rail container transportation market is evolvingrapidly and the development of railway infrastructure is rapidly becoming a lucrative investment.The potential is evident as demonstrated by the fact that China is considering rail containertransportation as an effective alternative to the traditional transportation methods such as sea- andairfreight intermodal container transportation of goods in the nearest future. There are distinctadvantages to rail container transportation, namely: versatility; mobility; distribution of containerhandling equipment; safety of cargo as well as speed of delivery. The article points out the majorproblems related to container transportation in Ukraine: poor condition of highways; deteriorationof rolling stock and railway infrastructure in general; lack of sufficient quantity and low availabilityof modern equipment at container terminals in Ukraine; a low competitive level of transport service;high level of bureaucracy on the railway and in customs clearance. In a free-market economy and,in particular, during industry restructuring, the author proposes a new approach to organizecontainer transportation in Ukraine and for the Ukrainian railway, which should reduce the costs ofrailway traffic , on the one hand, and make it more attractive to the users, thereby confirming itscompetitive advantages. The author came to the conclusion that, owing to the development of therailway infrastructure, namely the construction of a container logistics system and high-speedrailways on the territory of Ukraine, it is possible to not only reach a competitive level of transitstates on the China-EU route but also to take a preferred position as the most economical and fastest means of transit, obtaining a substantial profit and an incentive for the further development of thetransit potential of our country.