The Italian government has announced that it is aiming to present a plan and to cooperate to help unblock the export of goods from Ukraine, which have been restricted due to the war-related impacts on most seaport operations in the country. Italy will present its plan to help improve export logistics for Ukrainian companies, including steel mills, at a conference on the reconstruction of Ukraine to be held in Rome at the end of April this year.
“In fact, the Black Sea is closed [for Ukraine] due to the war. In this case, there is no other option but to deliver the goods to the Adriatic region via the available railways and automotive roads,” said Adolfo Urso, Italy’s economic development minister.
The Italian plan to be presented by the government implies the creation of an intermodal transport way as per the International transport corridor No. 5 (Venice – Trieste/Koper – Ljubljana – Maribor- Budapest – Uzhgorod – Lviv – Kyiv). It is intended to create the logistic platform which will connect Ukraine with Quadrante Europa intermodal port in Verona and further with the seaports of northeastern Italy, media sources report.
Once realized, the project will help Ukraine renew its access to the sea and will partly restore the country’s export capacities, which are nowadays restricted. For now, Ukraine operates seaports in Odessa, Illichivsk, Izmail and Yuzhne. Most of the operations are handled within the scope of the grain export agreement. The rest of the ports remained seized or blocked by Russian military forces.