A seminar to prepare for the contest to choose an engineering research and development company for the project documentation of Moscow-Kazan high-speed rail (HSR) was held in Moscow under the leadership of Vice President of Russian Railways Alexander Misharin.
“The main aim of our workshop is to familiarise all accredited participants with information about the Moscow-Kazan HSR project. Today we have representatives from one hundred companies from seven countries. This suggests that, even in a time of volatile markets, investors and companies are interested in major investment projects in Russia,” said Mr Misharin.
Participants were informed about the financial and legal aspects of the contest to fulfil engineering research and development project documentation and planning and area surveying for Moscow-Kazan HSR, as well as the tender procedure, the basic requirements and methods for evaluating bids, conditions, and timing of the planned activities.
The competition to select a team for the engineering research and development of project documentation for the Moscow-Kazan HSR project will be announced and held in the first quarter of 2015. More detailed information about the seminar, competition, and project can be found on the website of High-Speed Rail Lines (a subsidiary of Russian Railways, project office HSR: http://www.eng.hsrail.ru
Recall that in December 2014, at a meeting with the deputy prime minister, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced the governmental funding for design work on the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan HSR project in 2015. HSR refers to passenger trains travelling at speeds of 200 – 400 km/h.
The immediate task in the Moscow-Kazan HSR project will be to hold a competition in 2015 for the contractor to carry out survey work and design the road. After the completion of project work and project approval, construction of the line will begin, followed by putting the line into operation. The organisational-legal model of the project is a public-private partnership.
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At present, the entire scope of work necessary to begin Moscow-Kazan HSR has been carried out and the schedule of activities for the network was approved by the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation on 30 September 2013:
The substantiation of investment in the project, which was approved by Glavgosexpertisa Russia;
With the participation of international experts, an independent audit of technology and cost of the project was conducted and the justification of investment options in terms of technical solutions and cost was confirmed;
The investment memorandum of the project and tender documentation for the design phase of the highway were prepared.
The length of the Moscow-Kazan HSR line will be 770 km; it will pass through seven federal subjects of Russia and will have 15 stops, five stops in big cities (Moscow, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, and Kazan) and 10 regional stops. This will connect regions with a population of about 25 million people and provide travel between cities in a matter of hours.
A consortium of leading Russian institutions calculated the macroeconomic effects of HSR, the results of which were confirmed by the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia. In the proposed scheme, both the state and private investors will be completely reimbursed by the Moscow-Kazan HSR project.
In just the first 12 years of operation, the cumulative growth track of the GDP of Russia through agglomeration effects caused by the growth of labour productivity and an increase in business activity in nonoil sectors of the economy will be $172 billion in predicted prices. The amount of additional tax revenue in this period will be $56 billion, which exceeds the cost of the project multiple times.
Investment in the project will provide large-scale support of Russian industry, especially metallurgy (production of rails and steel), machinery, building materials, commerce, and science.
(Source: RZD)