RB Rail publishes Rail Baltic's cost-benefit analysis in full
RB Rail, the Rail Baltic joint venture set up by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Wednesday published on its homepage the 293-page Ernst & Young (EY) cost-benefit analysis in full.
A summary of the analysis carried out by EY was introduced to the public last week, but at the time, the company did not publish it in full or indicate when it would be published, releasing only a 24-page summary indicating that the project was economically viable and included €16.22 billion worth of socio-economic benefits.
BNS reported last week that without EU co-financing, the project would not be financially viable.
According to EY's cost-benefit analysis, the project's investment costs would total €4.2 billion in present value and additional maintenance costs would total €909 million. The revenue from the project would only total €898 million and residual value €255 million. Thus the total loss of the project would total €3.96 billion.
With an EU cofinancing rate of 85 percent, Estonia would have to pay €268 million, Latvia €393 million and Lithuania €493 million of the project's total cost of €5.8 billion. According to EY, the project's total socio-economic benefit for the Baltic countries would amount to €16.2 billion.
RB Rail is a joint venture established by the three Baltic countries in October 2014. The Rail Baltic project seeks to establish a direct railway connection between the Baltic states and the European railway network enabling speeds of up to 240 kilometers per hour for passenger trains and 120 kilometers per hour for freight trains.
EY's cost-benefit analysis can be read in full here.
Editor: Aili Vahtla
Source: BNS