Railway reform in the ECA regionprovides a mixed picture. Seven countries could reasonablybe described as 'high' reformers: Estonia,Bulgaria, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Poland, Romania and theSlovak Republic. Most of the high and medium reformers havein the last few years adopted new railway laws, adopted morecommercial business structures, tried explicitly to addressthe issue of funding passenger losses, privatized somenon-core businesses and encouraged some competition in input(supply) markets. But only Estonia has privatized a corerailway transport business while a few other countries (suchas Kazakhstan and Romania) have instituted third party railfreight operations for a significant part of the market.Russia is classified as a medium reformer because thereforms are still at an early stage. But given the scale andcomplexity of the challenge, it will be the most impressiveof achievement if the stated policies for private operationsand competition can be realized.About ten out of the ECA27 countries have not yet significantly reformed theirrailway industries, though two or three of these have plans(but not yet legislation) to do so. Those countries judgedas being 'low reformers' are not all poorperformers. The business and financial performance of therailways in Ukraine and Azerbaijan, for example, iscurrently improving although there has been littlestructural change in the industry. However, some of therailways in this group such as Albania, Macedonia, andTurkey are in dire straits.
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