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Government wants to facilitate railway construction
2007-07-27 17:15:09 | source: Polish Market

The government is considering issuing private firms with licences to build railway lines with the aim of speeding up infrastructure investments. According to the Transport Ministry, private enterprises would be allowed to charge trains tolls for access to the routes they have built for a dozen or so years, after which the track would be transferred to state control.

Another possible option would be to introduce “fast-track investments” into a draft amendment to the Railway Transport and Environmental Protection Act. According to the Ministry’s own estimates, this would help shorten the time needed to prepare new investments from six and a half years to four and a half years. The amendment would primarily make it easier to expropriate real estate for railway investments.
The Ministry of Transport and Regional Development is currently determining how much cash PKP will be able to spend on key investments prior to Euro 2012. PKP has been granted an EU subsidy of approx. €6bn within the framework of the government’s “Infrastructure and Environment” operational programme. If the Ministry of Finance agrees to increase the fuel excise revenue quota allocated to transport purposes from 12% to 50%, this would boost annual expenditure on infrastructure by roughly PLN 6.6bn (€1.75bn).
Moreover, PKP Polish Railways may be entitled to at least PLN 380m (€100.8m) from the state budget in 2008 to finance renovation and maintenance work. It received the same amount this year, but the Ministry of Transport hopes to secure even more cash in 2008, as it wants to shorten the time spent renovating track between cities hosting Euro 2012 games by at least two years.

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