The key subject of the IV International Railroad Business-Forum "Strategic Partnership 1520" held in Sochi on May 27-29, 2009 was the issue of consolidation of efforts of the railroad business and its partners for searching the ways and instruments allowing not only meeting the demand but also developing the mutual strategies, projects and decisions on its basis.
Dmitry Nikitin took part in the roundtable discussion devoted to peculiarities of market regulations and in particular to the necessity for building up the model of nondiscrimination access of private operators to the railroad infrastructure.
The global changes caused by the economic crisis have had a crucial impact on railroad business development and require reconsideration of the current plans and strategies. That is why today the question of development of nondiscrimination model sounds so urgent. The crisis is dangerous due to decrease in investors' trust in transport industry, which may be restored through the state federal purposeful programs. This is the reason that explains why the distinctive role of the state is so important in this question.
Dmitry Nikitin pointed out that "As of the date, two major possible forms of market regulations have been developed, specifically the mechanism of Supervisory Board (an expert body of one of the specialized state committees) and mechanism of self-regulating organizations (SRO). We support SRO and regard it as an efficient form of freight market regulations and arrangement. However SRO is not capable of replacing all the system of market regulations and especially in such an important segment as relations of independent operators (rolling stock owners) with the carrier and infrastructure owner. Therefore, we suggest that the initiative of establishing SRO should be complemented with other mechanisms of freight process regulations regarding interrelations of operators with all the market figures (e.g. with the mechanism of Supervisory Body). Besides, it is important to provide for the possibility of association membership of the both carrier and state regulators, as well as freight owners."