Today marks the beginning of the international two-day event “Rail Baltica Global Forum 2017 – Building a New Economic Corridor” organized by RB Rail AS, a joint venture by the three Baltic States, with the support of the project’s national implementing bodies – Rail Baltic Estonia, Eiropas Dzelzceļa līnijas and Rail Baltica statyba. A live video stream will be accessible both Forum days on www.railbaltica.org/forum.
The Rail Baltica Global Forum 2017 is the key international Rail Baltica event of this year on Rail Baltica’s economic potential, procurement regulation and organization, as well as facilitation of suppliers’ networking.
The first day of the Forum will be devoted to discussing the potential of Rail Baltica’s infrastructure becoming a catalyst for a new economic corridor. The Rail Baltica Global Project’s[1] Cost – Benefit Analysis for the Baltic countries will be presented for the first time. In addition, the event will explore business and passenger interest in not only the Rail Baltica project, but also other similar projects of such scale in Europe. High officials and opinion leaders, as well as industry representatives from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland, the EU Commission and Parliament will participate. The second day of the Forum, the Industry Suppliers’ Day, on April 25 will be devoted to the procurement topic with the participation of almost 200 businesses from 18 countries from across the globe.
More than 15 speakers from across Europe will gather on the First Day of the Forum to bring together the best ideas, practices and solutions for further implementation of the Rail Baltica Global Project.
The participation at the First Day of the Rail Baltica Global Forum has been confirmed by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Latvia Māris Kučinskis, Lithuanian Minister of Transport and Communications Rokas Masiulis, the Minister of Economics and Communications of the Republic of Estonia Kadri Simson, the Minister of Transportation of the Republic of Latvia Uldis Augulis and the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Infrastructure and Construction of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Bittel.
Baiba Rubesa, CEO and Chairperson of the Management Board of “RB Rail AS”, will present her vision on Rail Baltica – a unique, complex and large-scale trans-national infrastructure project forming a new economic corridor.
Strategic and tactical issues regarding the implementation of the “Project of the Century” will be addressed not only from the perspective of national and regional level, but also from the European Union perspective – Catherine Trautmann, European coordinator for the North Sea-Baltic TEN-T Core Network Corridor, and Herald Ruijters, Director of Investment, Innovative and Sustainable Transport, DG MOVE, EU Commission.
Emile Quinet, associate member of Ecole des Ponts-Paris Tech, will present the impact of transport infrastructure on regional economic development and connectivity, while Nauris Kļava, director of the Management Consultations Department of Ernst & Young Baltic Ltd., will present the Cost-Benefit Analysis of Rail Baltica for the first time.
Various logistics experts will explore the freight business opportunities that Rail Baltica will bring to the Baltics, Finland and Poland. The topic will be covered by Jorma Härkönen, director of LIMOWA Logistics Center Claster (Finland), Normunds Krūmiņš, chairman of the board of the Latvian Logistics Association (Latvia) and Jakub Kapturzak, deputy director at the Department of Railway Transport of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Construction of the Republic of Poland.
The necessary focus on the future projections for passenger mobility in the Baltics will be given by Dr. Raimonds Aronietis, a policy analyst at the International Transport Forum at the OECD while Emils Rode, senior expert at the Live Baltic Campus project, will present the topic of urbanisation of knowledge economy in the Baltic region.
The event will also cover a variety of topics on the potential for regional connectivity and secondary economic benefits offered by a fast conventional railway. The experience of France will be presented by Dominique Deau, railway expert, former development director of NExTEO SNCF Reseau and SNCF Mobilites.
The topic of Rail Baltica’s urban impacts and improved city planning in a connected region will be covered by Oskars Redbergs, architect, educator and curator, PhD candidate of Brandenburgische Technische Universität. Additionally, the topic of high speed rail infrastructure as a platform for digitalization and innovation, recommendations for Rail Baltica will be covered by Philippe Citroën, UNIFE Director General.
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[1] Implementation of the Rail Baltica project in the Baltic States