A Chinese-Russian consortium is hoping to win the competition to design Russia’s first high-speed rail line, according to the Shanghai-based Guancha Syndicate. The Russian media says that the Chinese-Russian consortium submitted an application to design the 770-kilometer, 15-station Moscow-Kazan high-speed rail line before the April 22 deadline. European enterprises have also expressed an interest to cooperate with the consortium, the report added. The winning tender bid will be announced before the end of the month, Russian Railways said.
The US$28.5 billion project — based on current exchange rates — began calling for tenders on March 16 with a reserve price of 20.79 billion rubles (US$409 million). Russian Railways, one of the three largest transport companies in the world, will finance 60% of the ambitious project, while the remaining 40% will be funded by foreign partners.
The Chinese report claims that the other company in the consortium is the China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co, which has reportedly been following the Russian high-speed rail project since 2012.
Other companies reported to have submitted tenders for the project include the China Investment Corporation, the sovereign wealth fund responsible for managing part of the PRC’s foreign exchange reserves, French multinational company Alstom and a German consortium that includes Siemens and Deutsche Bahn.
Once complete, the high-speed rail network will allow a travel time from Moscow to Kazan in just three and a half hours, a significant reduction from the current 11 hours. The line is scheduled to begin operations in 2018 in time for the FIFA World Cup in Russia.
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