Russian Merchant Marine

(from “General course of Transport”)

Modern Russian Merchant Marine includes 200 organizations and enterprises, more than 10 Shipping Companies, 10 seamanships, 21 sea ports, the majority of which are the ports of the 1^st Class, and 11 shiprepair yards.

Today the Russian Merchant Marine is a branch of national economy. There is no coastal country or region in the world with which Russia is unable to carry on trade using its own tonnage.

Russian ships carry a half of the world’s volume of cargo. The turnover of Russia is 290 mln tonnes every year. Vessels carry equipment for engineering industry, mining machinery, machine tools and instruments.

2 mln tonnes of coal, 1,5 mln tonnes of ore, 1 mln tonnes of metals, 8 mln tonnes of oil, 2 mln tonnes of timber, 400, 000 tonnes of grain were transported by the Russian ships last year.

Merchant marine of the USSR had the 4^th place in its tonnage in the world after Liberia, Panama and Japan.

The disorder of the USSR resulted in some geographical changes. So nowadays a number of refrigerated ships belongs to the Latvian Shipping Company and some passenger liners to the Black Sea Seamanship.

But there is also another disadvantage of Russian Merchant Marine. Russian ships are old, their age is more than 20 years. 50 % of them are out of use and not suitable for transportation of cargo.

The Russian Federation is developing. Our economic power is growing. This opens the great prospects before our merchant fleet. We hope, Russian Merchant Marine will be well-equipped and technically advanced in the nearest future.

Our Maritime Education is expanding. A lot of well-qualified specialists will work in Shipping Companies and operate our Russian vessels. Their knowledge and skills will change the situation.

3. Answer the following questions:

1. What does modern Merchant Marine include?

2. What countries does Russia carry on its trade?

3. What export cargoes do our ships carry?

4. What import cargoes do our ships carry?

5. What prospects does our merchant marine have?

4. Testing grammar!

Дата добавления: 2015-09-04