Rail Baltica benefits outweighs necessary investments

  • 2017-04-24
  • BNS/TBT Staff

RIGA - Benefits from Rail Baltic railway project outweighs the necessary investments, said Baiba Rubesa, the board chairman of RB Rail, a Baltic joint venture coordinating the European standard-gauge railway project Rail Baltica, said at Ral Baltica Global Forum 2017 on Monday.

She underscored that the project will significantly and in a long term change the Baltic urban and economic environment. The project' s cost-benefits analyses demonstrate that the benefits of the project outweigh the necessary investments.

Rubesa said that railway project brings along many secondary benefits and macroeconomic multipliers. Rail Baltica will develop a new economic corridor, ensuring broader mobility, new supply chips for the logistics sector, tourism development, promote employment and overall economic development.

At the same time, the project is environmentally friendly, reducing the amount of emissions in the transport sector and the financing necessary for roads.

Herald Ruijters, Director of Investment, Innovative and Sustainable Transport, DG Move, EU Commission, underscored the significance of the project, saying that there are also opponents to it, therefore its effects, aspects and financing should be explained to the public. He said that the cost-benefits analysis will help to explain the necessity of the project in more detail.

As reported, Rail Baltica Global Forum 2017 started in Riga today which is a key international Rail Baltica event of this year on Rail Baltica economic potential, procurement regulation and organisation, as well as facilitation of suppliers' networking. It will address strategic and tactical issues regarding the implementation of the “Project of the Century” from a national, regional and EU perspective and will bring together top executives and decision makers, rail, logistics and economics professionals, influential politicians and institutions as well as potential suppliers for the project from across Europe.

The Rail Baltica project seeks to re-establish a direct connection between the Baltic states and the European railway network by building a European-gauge high-speed railway that would link Tallinn, Riga, Kaunas, Warsaw and Berlin. The EU will help finance the project from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for a development of transport infrastructure.