German consortium will build high-speed railways in Russia

The consortium German Initiative, which forms Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bahn and several other companies, as reported by the Council of Russian Railways (RZD), has expressed a desire to join the project for the design of high-speed railways Moscow-Kazan.

It is important to note that the German Initiative (NI) is ready to provide 2.2 billion euros to finance the construction of the second section - from Nizhny Novgorod to Kazan. A meeting between representatives of the Russian Railways Council and Siemens took place last week. The German representative gave information that NI has the opportunity to receive 1.5 billion euros from German financial institutions to finance the construction of infrastructure and 700 million euros for the purchase of rolling stock.

In addition, the consortium preparing the construction project includes the China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (Creece). During a meeting in May between the Russian Railways president and representatives of the Creece council, "the Chinese side expressed interest in further participation in the construction of high-speed railways and participation in other road construction projects in Russia," as announced at the end of the meeting. Earlier, the Chinese confirmed that they will provide the equivalent of 400 billion rubles for construction and will contribute 52 billion rubles as a contribution to the line operator's company.

Based on the above discussions, experts believe that Russians do not want to completely depend on one partner and their technologies, and, possibly, divide the project into two sections. It would also be desirable for the company to quickly find a place for three shareholders, and not two, parties.