Ukrainian Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatseniuk has set a task to Ukrzaliznytsia and participants of the new container train running the so-called New Silk Road to cut the time of its trip to 10 days.

"This would allow cutting expenses for transit and accelerate it," he said at a meeting at Ukrzaliznytsia on Tuesday.

The prime minister also ordered that Infrastructure Ministry is to hold the required negotiations on passing the borders, the speed of the train and all unsettled issues in Astana.

"Now the cost of transportation of one container is around $5,500. This is more expensive than the traditional route via Russia. However, if we are able to fully load the train, we will cut the cost," he said.

Head of the commercial department at Ukrzaliznytsia Yuriy Merkulov added that there are ideas how to load the train and the train would depart to Ukraine in late February.

He said that there are bottlenecks regarding the transportation in the Caspian and Black Sea basins. He said that for example, the voyages in the Black Sea are complicated by weather conditions during 57 days.

"We’ve stayed for almost 254 hours near the Batumi port due to the storm alert," he said.

Acting Board Chairman of Ukrzaliznytsia Oleksandr Zavhorodniy said that all the required issues regarding the operation of the train will be settled at a coming meeting in Kazakhstan.

"We've launched an alternative route to ways via Russia to deliver our cargos to the Central Asia. We were to find an alternative, as our neighbor could close transit at any time, and we've found it," Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Andriy Pyvovarsky said.