Timchenko a 'devout supporter' of Moscow-China high-speed rail line
MOSCOW. Nov 24 (Interfax) - Gennady Timchenko, the Russian co-chairman of the Russia-China Business Council, likes the idea of building a high-speed rail line connecting Moscow and Beijing.
"I am a devout supporter of this project," Timchenko said at a meeting with Chinese journalists, acknowledging at the same time that the project would require "enormous investment."
The high-speed rail project would be a good investment for China, he said. "How much does China have invested in U.S. Treasuries? I think it's more than $2 trillion. And what is that money doing there? It is slowly being lost to China, because of dollar inflation, past and present. Investment in the high-speed rail line would be recouped. Perhaps, not quickly, but we would have created infrastructure for future generations that connects Asia with Europe," he said, according to a spokesman at Timchenko's Volga Group.
New commercial centers and industrial activity might spring up along the line's route. "For example, the city of Vladimir is located near Moscow, but the trip there requires several hours. High-speed rail cuts travel time to 40 minutes," Timchenko said.
A Moscow-Beijing high-speed rail line, or VSM in the Russian acronym, would be a "high-speed Silk Road."
"I assume the Chinese side would be interested in extending the line to Europe. There is already a line connecting Hamburg and Beijing, passing through Russia. That is what it is called: 'Silk Road.' It delivers freight from China to Europe two weeks faster than by sea. The new rail line would further speed the freight link. According to preliminary estimates, travel time on the Moscow-Beijing line would be reduced 75%. That is, it would take 33 hours to travel from the one national capital to the other. The line would have capacity to carry over 200 million passengers a year," Timchenko said, adding that the line would add 1-1.5 percentage points to Russian and Chinese GDP.
The Russian Transport Ministry and Russian Railways (RZD) reached agreement in October on possible construction of the Moscow-Beijing VSM rail line with China's National Development and Reform Commission and China Railway Corporation. The Chinese side will examine the possibility of participating in the project "within a state-private sector partnership" as investors, lenders and suppliers of technologies, with localization in Russia of manufacture of rolling stock and spare parts, including via joint ventures," according to the agreement.
The planned 770-kilometer Moscow-Kazan line, which will pass through seven Russian regions and transport passengers between the two cities in no more than 3.5 hours at speeds up to 400 km/hr, would be incorporated in the Moscow-Beijing line. If the Moscow-Kazan project is approved, RZD plans to select concessionaires for three segments: Vladimir-Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod-Cheboksary and Cheboksary-Kazan. Passenger service is scheduled to begin in 2018.
RZD would contribute an estimated 384.1 billion rubles to the project and the three concessionaires would contribute 684.4 billion rubles.