UIP 59th Management Report 2008

For the UIP 2008 ended with both positive and negative feelings. On the one hand, UIP’s efforts for the recognition of the wagon keeper in European legislation turned out to be successful. Even if the persistent distinction between the wagon keeper and the entity in charge of maintenance, ECM, will create a sort of two-tier market in the future, the recognition of the keeper as actor has been legally and factually effected.On the other hand, the economic situation due to the financial crisis is less positive. Even if at the end of 2008 it had not yet reached all the rail market, this will certainly be the case in 2009. The UIP wagon-using sectors, like the chemical and automotive industries but also the steel industry and bulk transport, have experienced abrupt and strong downturns, above all in the fourth quarter of 2008, affecting the logistics chain. The economic crisis will not only risk weakening certain actors in our sector and cause the positive results obtained with the deregulation of rail freight to be lost but will also risk moderating the success and initiatives obtained by the UIP team, in particular our Secretary General, Wolf Gehrmann.However, the UIP has shown in the past and will show in the future that it is capable of overcoming crises, whether they are political or, as we have seen, “technical” and “in application”. I will ask you to review the various UIP activities, both technical and political and relational.