OREANDA-NEWS. February 10, 2009. Last year, Russian Railways continued to attract outside investors to develop rail infrastructure. In particular, infrastructure projects costing 261.63 million roubles were carried out using funding from regional and municipal budgets, reported the press-centre of Russian Railways.

About 1,013 billion roubles were spent on implementing infrastructure projects by such industrial and extracting companies such as LUKOIL-Permnefteorgsyntez, Petro-Granite, Mikhailovsky GOK, Kaluga Electrometallurgical Research and Production Plant, Tuapse Bulker Terminal and Abinsky Electrometallurgical Plant.

In addition, in 2008 the Russian Government and Russian Railways adopted decisions on the joint implementation of two major investment projects to develop railway infrastructure using money from Russia’s Investment Fund.

As a result, the Company will be introducing high-speed passenger trains between St. Petersburg and Helsinki and reconstructing the line between Oune – Vysokogornaya - and the associated construction of a new tunnel at Kuznetsovsk on the line between Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Sovetskaya Gavan.

The total cost for the high-speed project between St. Petersburg and Helsinki based on the actual prices for the relevant years is 79.7 billion roubles (including VAT), with 35% of the cost coming from the Investment Fund (28 billion roubles) and 65% (51.7 billion roubles) from Russian Railways. The project began in 2007 and has invested more than 14.8 billion roubles so far.

Total investment on reconstruction of the Oune – Vysokogornaya line and the new Kuznetsovsk tunnel will amount to 59.9 billion roubles (including VAT).

The Investment Fund contributed 30% of the total project costs (17.6 billion roubles), with Russian Railways providing the remaining 70% (42.3 billion roubles).

The Kuznetsovsk tunnel is due to be commissioned in 2013, with work on the reconstruction of the line between Komsomolsk-on-Amur and Sovetskaya Gavan to continue until 2016.

The construction of the new Kuznetsovsk tunnel and the reconstruction of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur - Sovetskaya Gavan line will ensure uninterrupted railway communication between the European part of Russia’s and its Far East region, as well as to the ports Sovetskaya Gavan and Vanino. This will in turn facilitate the development of mining and processing enterprises in Eastern Siberia and the Far East.