ASSESSMENT OF THE RIVER PORTS OF UKRAINE REGARDING THEIR LOGISTICS ZONES` ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITY

The study objective was to provide comprehensive assessment of the river ports of Ukraine as for the possibility to start up logistics zones. To achieve it the following tasks have been solved: currently operating river ports have been found out; port selection criteria have been substantiated; the most suitable river ports for the logistics zones organization have been determined. Research method and methodology. While doing the research, general scientific (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, group analysis) and special (abstraction, etc.) methods of studying economic phenomena and processes have been used. The main material (study results). A study of actual operational capacity of the existing river ports, unloading terminals and berths, their topological interconnection taking into account the spatial factor has been carried out. An expert survey in the field of logistics, in particular, river logistics has been conducted. Key assessment criteria to select ports to start up logistics zones inside the area or nearby have been proved. The proposed assessment criteria have been applied to select seven river ports as potentially suitable for the organization of logistics zones inside the area or nearby. It has been assumed that the logistics zones could become the core elements to form regional distribution logistics centers or regional logistics clusters. Conclusions. The actual number of currently operating river ports, unloading terminals and berths in the general river infrastructure of Ukraine has been found out. Five criteria have been proved and proposed to select the most suitable river ports to start up the logistics zones, namely port capacity and territory, port size length, berth depth and land transport network accessibility. The following river ports have been recommended to choose to start up working logistics zones: Izmail, Reni, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Dnipro and Novokakhovka. The selected river ports are topologically linked to the regions and could be integrated into the regional distribution logistics centers.