Control of the Air Express national project for construction of a railway between Kiev and the Boryspil airport has been transferred to the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure. This is stated in the Cabinet of Ministers resolution No. 418 dated 17 June 2015, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
The Air Express national project provides for establishment of a high-speed passenger rail service between the Kiev Passazhyrskyi train station and the Boryspil airport. The infrastructure project was to be implemented with credits from the Export-Import Bank of China.
The total amount of the credits is USD 372 million. The funds were expected to be provided in two tranches. The first tranche of USD 52 million was transferred in 2013, and it was used to finance design and preparatory work. The second tranche of USD 320 million was intended for directly financing construction of the infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the Boryspil airport’s acting Deputy General Director for Operations Anton Borysiuk said in December 2014 that the initial project for a railway link between Kiev and the airport was unlikely to be in demand and Infrastructure Minister Andrii Pyvovarskyi said in April that the project was economically unjustified.
It was announced in June this year that Ukraine and China were willing to discuss the possibility of redirecting the loan funds provided for the Air Express project to other projects.
