Gruia Stoica to enter railway passenger transport, a 600m-euro market

Liberalisation of the passenger rail transport in 2010 could bring big Romanian or foreign private operators onto the Romanian market, to compete with state-owned CFR Calatori, which has a majority market share of railway passenger traffic. "By the end of the year I will get a licence to go into the railway passenger transport business. We already have the carriages, we only have to get this licence. I cannot say what routes we will operate," said Gruia Stoica, owner of the Grampet group, which includes Grup Feroviar Roman, one of the largest private cargo rail transporters, with a 100 million-euro turnover. On the other hand, CFR Calatori (579 million-euro turnover and 70.6 million-euro losses last year) representatives say the weak rail infrastructure could benefit the state operator and be detrimental to international competitors.