Kaunas Free Economic Zone joins the Rail Working Group

4th January 2016

The Kaunas Free Economic Zone in Lithuania (www.ftz.lt) is one of the leading industrial and logistics development areas in Northern Europe. The free trade zone of 534 ha is located at the major crossing of the East West railway corridor that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean on one hand and the future North South Rail Baltica TEN-T corridor. Due to this unique location; the zone connects 3 large consumer markets: Baltic region, CIS and Western Europe (resp. 110 mi, 250 mi and 340 mi consumers).

The Rail Baltica is one of the EU’s most ambitious railway projects that will open the European 1425 mm railway space to the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and later up to Helsinki and St Petersburg)

Kaunas Free Economic Zone has launched an ambitious project: the new Silk Road Initiative. 3 large free economic zones located on the new Silk roads initiated the project. Regional development concepts of cities on the new silk roads will be promoted by the supranational transport infrastructures in the future. See: www.silkroadparks.com The project wants to become a pilot project for the China Government strategy “ One Belt One Road – OBOR “ The network will be extended to other cities in the Russia, Kazakhstan and Western Europe.

Two major Chinese SOE’s are involved: China Merchants Group and SINOMACH (former China Ministry of Machinery – through their subsidiary CAMCE).