Page 114 - RusRPTNov19

Russian media reports. Around RUB600bn ($9.4bn) will come in the form of direct state grants or cheap government-backed loans, while the rest will be financed directly by Russian Railways — which is fully-owned by the Russian government. In total, more than 1,000 kilometers of track will be built linking the three cities at a cost of around $33mn per kilometre. The figures were included in a budget proposal sent from Russian Railways to deputy prime minister Maxim Akimov and circulated throughout the government, Russian daily Kommersant reported. The 659-kilometer line between Moscow and St. Petersburg — Russia’s two largest cities — will be constructed by the end of 2026 and will cut journey times by 40% to two hours and 40 minutes. The Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod section, which comes in at 421 kilometers, will be ready by 2024. Russian Railways said the new line will be able to carry 47.4mn passengers a year. The company has also pledged that ticket prices will not be more expensive than those for the Sapsan, the current fastest train between Moscow and St. Petersburg. The draft budget shows the majority of the construction for the new route is scheduled to take place between 2022 and 2025.
Russian Railways (RZD) still retained a project to build a bridge to the island of Sakhalin as part of its investment programme for 2020-2022, and it plans to finance the construction with an issue of perpetual bonds, RBC business portal reported on October 3 citing the document. As reported by bne IntelliNews, inSeptember2018thegovernmenthad secondthoughtsonthe mega-project of building a bridge to the island of Sakhalin . The bridge could cost RUB252bn ($4bn) or RUB637bn accounting for the construction of 585mn of adjacent rail tracks. After inaugurating the Kerch Strait bridge that connects the Russian mainland with the annexed Crimea peninsular, President Vladimir Putin was expected to announce another mega-bridge to Sakhalin at the Eastern Economic Forum of 2018. But no announcement has been made since and reportedly the economic rationale behind the bridge was far from clear to the government and independent think-tanks. The main cargo for the bridge would be coal, but no coal majors have so far showed interest in sending shipments of coal through Sakhalin.
114 RUSSIA Country Report November 2019 www.intellinews.o