Airport, EU – Baltic States, Investments, Railways, Transport

The PwC representatives said that in order to promote investing in transport and infrastructure, the Three Seas Initiative has been proposed by several key stakeholders in the CEE region as a way of facilitating investment and development in order to address imbalances and boost economic figures. The CEE region, which also includes Latvia and is joined by the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas, accounts for 28% of the EU’s territory and 22% of the population, but only for 10% of the bloc’s GDP.

PwC notes that although investment in the Tree Seas region’s transport infrastructure have already exceeded EUR 150 billion, the financing needs for transport infrastructure have been estimated at EUR 615 billion through 2025. In their report “The road ahead – CEE transport infrastructure dynamics”, PwC and the Atlantic Council outline the key challenges and opportunities for the Three Seas Initiative in the area of transport infrastructure. The report analyzes investment promoting opportunities and the five main transport corridors expected to play an especially important role in connecting the countries of the Three Seas region: North Sea-Baltic, Baltic-Adriatic, Rhine Danube, Orient/East-Med and Mediterranean.

Over EUR 384 billion are still needed for more than 200 projects to complete these transport corridors, according to the report.

One of the Three Seas Initiative’s most important tasks is to build an effective financing process for transport infrastructure that would allow closing the gap between the East and the West. At present, a citizen of the “old EU” has on average twice as many kilometers of motorways to drive on than his/her counterpart in CEE.

“Despite progress in recent years, there is still a great need here in CEE for more efficient and modern transport infrastructure to support our growth aspirations. Given the need, we expect construction market growth in CEE to be 3.1% and outpace that of Western Europe over the next five years. For this to happen, we will need to continue to attract investment from both public and private sources,” says Agnieszka Gajewska, Partner at PwC and CEE Capital Projects & Infrastructure Leader.

Representatives of Latvia, who also took part in the study, confirmed the necessity for Latvia to integrate with Europe’s transport network and take a broader look at a more distant future.

“To be competitive, we need to integrate with the common transport network, develop our railways, motorways and seaways, as well as their infrastructure, and maintain them in a good condition. Latvia has already implemented significant infrastructure projects, such as Riga Airport, which is a major air traffic hub, and the Dienvidu (Southern) bridge, which is being increasingly used for traffic in Riga Region. We have courageously launched the biggest and most complex transport infrastructure project in the EU’s history – Rail Baltica,” said Baiba Apine, head of the business management consultations at PwC.