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Lithuania's railway, roads and ports to be improved by EBRD loan
Rail services from Lithuania's eastern border to its Baltic Sea Coast and road and port services will be rehabilitated with a US$ 18.9 million (ECU 16.5 million equivalent) loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signed today.
Ron Freeman, First Vice President of the EBRD, said: "Lithuania's formerly well-maintained transport system has been progressively deteriorating since the separation from the Soviet Union due to lack of foreign exchange. This situation calls for immediate external support. The EBRD loan will enable construction works to proceed and help retain Lithuanian's vitally important international transit role linking Sumskas on the Belarus border with Klaipeda Port on the Baltic Sea."
The project involves: replacement of approximately 131 km of railway tracks; provision of railway track maintenance and marshalling yard equipment; repaving of major road networks; construction of 11 km of the Panevezys Southern Bypass to relieve congestion around the town centre; acquisition of equipment for materials testing, roads testing and surveys; and a study of what is needed to improve the port and rail trans-shipment connection at Klaipeda.
The total cost of the project is US$ 46.5 million. The Export-Import Bank of Japan is expected to provide US$ 18.9 million and the remaining US$ 8.7 million will come from the Ministry of Transport of Lithuania.
Lithuania's surface transport system, together with those of Estonia and Latvia, provides the principal transport links between the CIS countries of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and the Baltic sea-routes. Klaipeda is Lithuania's principal seaport which offers sheltered, ice-free conditions. It accounts for about 22 per cent of the volume of international trade passing through the ports of the three Baltic states and Kaliningrad, and about 95 per cent of total freight is delivered to or conveyed from the port by rail.
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