Transported goods up 18 %

In January-May, 2008, the transport companies from Moldova carried goods in amount of 7,384,600 tones, by 18.1% more than in the similar period of 2007, Info-Prim Neo jas learnt from the National Statistics Bureau. The hike has been determined by the increase of amounts of transported goods by motorway – by 45.7% and railway – by 10.3%. At the same time, the river and air transports registered drops of 20.3% and, respectively, 20%. The auto carriers have transported 2,091,800 tonnes of goods, the railway carriers – 5,245,000 tonnes, the river carriers – 47,400 tonnes, and the air carriers – 0,400 tonnes. Most of the goods loaded into railway cars were construction materials (27%), cement (26.1%) and iron (23.5%). At the same time, in the first 5 months of this year, the buses and minibuses carried 46.7 million passengers, by 6.1% more than in January-May 2007. From the total number, 68.2% were carried by private companies, 22.7% - by public carriers, 9.1% - by joint public and private companies. The number of passengers carried by air has increased by 8.4% compared with the similar period of 2007 up to 156,600 passengers, while in the river transport their number fell by 11.6% down to 38,200. The railway carriers transported 1,810,400 passengers with 30,800 passengers more (+1.7%) than in the similar period of 2007.