The tunnel would be a total of 103 kilometers long. Photo: FINEST BAY DEVELOPMENT
A memorandum of understanding has been signed by FinEst Bay Area Development and a consortium of three Chinese companies as part of the plan to construct an undersea train tunnel from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia.
The final design and construction work of the Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel will be conducted by China Railway Engineering Company, China Railway International Group and China Communications Construction Company, with the financial backing of Touchstone Capital Partners, a Chinese investment group.
“We are very excited to get these best in class tunnel and train skilled design and construction companies to join our project. The trust between the parties has formed through discussions and actions. The partner companies are the largest in the world in their own fields of expertise. These new partners are needed in addition to the best in class local Finnish, Estonian and other European design and construction for example there is very limited resources in Finland and Estonia in tunnel boring and high-speed train technologies," said FinEst Bay Area Development co-founder, Peter Vesterbacka.
The project, which aims to connect the two capitals through a 100 km (60 mile) double train tunnel running underneath the Gulf of Finland, would cut the two hour ferry journey time down to a 20 minute train ride.
A statement from FinEst Bay said: ”The train tunnel will form a common metropolitan area of the capital city regions of Finland and Estonia. The new metropolitan area will be a centre of gravity between Asia and Europe when through the tunnel it is possible to travel with trains from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport to Tallinn and then onward to Central Europe. In Finland the initiative will strengthen the role of Vantaa as a logistical hub and will enable the cities of Uusimaa region to connect better to the national transportation network.”
FinEst Bay signed a memorandum of understanding with Touchstone Capital Partners in March. The investors agreed to provide €15-billion in return for a minority stake in the tunnel and two-thirds in debt.
The project is a part of Beijing's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to connect China to the rest of Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa by sea or land.
The Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel project has yet to receive the backing of the European Union, or the Estonian or Finnish governments.
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