DUSHANBE, May 7, 2013, Asia-Plus  -- Tajik President Emomali Rahmon yesterday met here with Vladimir Yakunin, president of Russian state-run rail company, Rossiyskiye Zheleznye Dorogi (Russian Railways).

In the course of the talks, the sides considered issues related to cooperation between Tajikistan and the Russian Federation in the field of rail transportation.

According to the Tajik president’s website, Russian state-run rail company head noted that Russia was interested in expansion of bilateral cooperation with Tajikistan in the field of rail transportation.

JSC Russian Railways (JSC RZD) is a Russian vertically integrated company, both managing infrastructure and operating freight and passenger train services.  In 2012 it became one of the three largest transport companies in the world.  The company was established on September 18, 2003, when a decree was passed to separate the railways from the Russian Ministry of the Means of Communication (MPS).  On October 1, 2003 the company took over the management functions of the rail networks from the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation (MR), leaving the state regulation to MR.  RZD got 987 companies (95% in asset value) out of the 2046 that had formed the MR system.

Vladimir Yakunin arrived in Dushanbe to attend the 58th meeting of the CIS Council for Rail Transport that kicked off in Dushanbe yesterday.

A two-day meeting that is concluding today is reportedly discussing the results of operations of the railway network in 2012 and over the first quarter of this year, guidelines for train schedule for 2013/2014, the results of the census of freight cars and preliminary results of the census of containers; the situation with mutual payments between the railway administrations over the report period, the tariff policy of railways for international shipments of freight for 2013, etc.