German Companies Interested In Creation Of Moscow-St. Petersburg High Speed Railway Line

Rukhshan Mir (@rukhshanmir) Published December 19, 2018 | 11:52 PM

The "German initiative" consortium, comprising a number of German manufacturers and financial organizations, is interested in participating in the project to build a high speed railway line connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg, the consortium's project manager for the development of high-speed railway lines in Russia, Evgeny Makarov, said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th December, 2018) The "German initiative" consortium, comprising a number of German manufacturers and financial organizations, is interested in participating in the project to build a high speed railway line connecting Moscow and St. Petersburg, the consortium's project manager for the development of high-speed railway lines in Russia, Evgeny Makarov, said on Wednesday.

There are currently no high-speed railway lines in Russia. The Moscow-Kazan railway line is expected to become the first such project in Russia, with the pilot project connecting Moscow and Gorokhovets in the Vladimir Region.

"We are currently discussing three high-speed railway line projects in Russia, not two. Moscow-St. Petersburg project chronologically comes as the first one ... It is on the agenda again now and we are interested in this project," Makarov said at a meeting in the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

According to Makarov, the existing Moscow-St. Petersburg project was prepared in mid-1990s, and now it needs to be updated.

"Therefore, we cannot quickly start the construction here in any case," Makarov said.

Russian Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin said on December 12 that investments must be justified by the effects that the economy can get beyond this project, and assumed that the Moscow-St. Petersburg project could show more efficiency than the Moscow-Kazan rail link.

Makarov noted that the consortium initially participated in the two other projects that are actively being discussed, the Moscow-Kazan and the Yekaterinburg-Chelyabinsk rail links. According to him, Oreshkin's statement was perceived by the consortium as the desire of the Russian authorities to return to Moscow-St. Petersburg project.