Representatives of Kreiss, one of the biggest European freight carrier, and Latvijas Finieris, manufacturer and one of the biggest Latvian exporter, met with the management of RB RAIL, the central coordinator of the Rail Baltica project in the three Baltic States, to discuss how Rail Baltica infrastructure will affect their businesses. Both parties agreed that the new railway connection could favourably impact supply chains and transportation services under the precondition that synergy is developed between different type of carriers and Rail Baltica, ensuring seamless and timely freight transportation.
Entrepreneurs pointed out the importance of timely and effective supply chains for all business operations. Rail Baltica being a new railway infrastructure will offer significant and positive changes for intrastate transportation, but one of the most awaited outcome of the project is the smart logistics’ with an extensive IT integration linking manufacturer, forwarder and railway operator, combinations to be promoted within the region.
From freight carrier’s point of view, Rail Baltica infrastructure would not only enable development of their current services but could also positively address such issues as the shortage in drivers as well as completely change the working model of this profession by employing them mostly for work within the borders of the region they live.
“It is too early to estimate how exactly Rail Baltica could affect our services, but, we definitely see a huge potential in different ways of cooperation. What we really hope for already today is that Rail Baltica will help us to reduce the hours and kilometres of each driver, which is of high importance taking into account the shortage in workforce” said CEO of Kreiss Andrey Petrov. He also pointed out that multimodal terminals should provide maximum flexibility in processing and transloading cargos.
During the meeting RB RAIL AS emphasised that the new Rail Baltica railway is built for passengers and freight, therefore, it is highly important for the project implementers to meet different representatives of the business community in the three Baltic States to understand their expectations on the new transport road.
“In the end, the most important part of the Rail Baltica project will be its developed business case. For this reason, we want to hear the vision of business community in order to work in lines with their needs and strategies,” concluded Baiba Rubesa, CEO and Chairperson of RB RAIL AS.
The dialogue with stakeholders was positively valued also by Mārtiņš Lācis, Board Member of Latvijas Finieris AS, who after the meeting concluded: “We appreciate cooperation partners that act along the needs of entrepreneurs getting acquainted with their visions before the significant decisions. We have found a key to success – to think and to act jointly by looking for complex and innovative solutions, including information technology solutions. By involving businesses – in this particular case operators and freight carriers – it means to look into effective development of national economy and to strengthen Latvian entrepreneur export competitiveness”.