“…The NIB-financed European-gauge track built in Lithuania is the first step in improving connectivity between the Baltic railway network and Western Europe,” a press release from Lietuvos Geležinkeliai quoted Henrik Normann, NIB president and CEO.
Vidmantas Gudas, Lietuvos Geležinkeliai spokesman, told BNS that this loan was the biggest of the loans so far extended by the NIB to the railway company.
Last June, NIB extended a loan to Lietuvos Geležinkeliai for track modernization.
The new loan would be used for the implementation of the projects included in the national investment program as well as for the European-gauge railway project Rail Baltica, Lietuvos Geležinkeliai said.
The railway company will finance the construction of a 115-kilometer European-gauge railroad track from the Lithuanian-Polish border to the city of Kaunas. The project also includes reconstructing a 60-kilometer wider-gauge track from the city of Šiauliai to the Lithuanian-Latvian border. On top of that, the company will upgrade parts of the Trans-European East-West corridors in Lithuania, i.e. the branches Kiev-Minsk-Vilnius-Klaipėda and Kaunas-Kaliningrad, establish public logistics centers, and develop railway system in the port of Klaipėda.
