At the invitation of SJSC "Latvijas dzelzceļš", the heads of the national railway companies of Estonia and Lithuania will travel to Riga for a joint meeting tomorrow, January 12. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the latest developments in the Baltic railway industry and agree on future cooperation in the current geopolitical circumstances.
At the invitation of SJSC "Latvijas dzelzceļš" Chairman of the Board Māris Kleinbergs, Chairman of the Board at Estonian Railways (Eesti Raudtee) Kaido Zimmermann and head of Lithuanian Railways (Lietuvos Geležinkeliai) Egidijus Lazauskas will visit Riga tomorrow.
SJSC "Latvijas dzelzceļš" Chairman of the Board Māris Kleinbergs comments: “By holding regular meetings with CEOs of Europe’s largest international railway organizations to discuss current affairs in the transport industry, we are becoming increasingly more convinced that our cooperation partners in global markets see the Baltic countries as a single transport corridor. We are united by both the same track gauge and various common challenges, therefore it is particularly important to look for new opportunities for even closer cooperation between the railways of the three Baltic countries, developing internal Baltic freight transport by rail and improving the Baltic region’s competitiveness in the transport sector as a whole.”
“European Union institutions at the end of 2022 brought up the question of a possible transition of the railway infrastructure to the standard gauge in all EU member countries, and that is one of the reasons why the Baltic railway companies have to get together to discuss the purpose and potential impact of such a project,” Māris Kleinbergs goes on to say.
During the meeting, the heads of the Baltic railway companies will discuss the key latest developments in the industry, such as plans to switching the Baltic railway infrastructure to the standard gauge, development of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the future of the 1,520 mm gauge railway network, as well as various other cooperation projects.