Rail Baltica has named two teams as preferred bidders for two Estonian sections of the line, which will be a high-speed corridor connecting Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Poland and the European rail network.

The first successful consortium is made up of two subsidiaries of Finnish civil engineer GRK, Estonian contractor Merko Ehitus, French engineer NGE Contracting, and Swedish consulting engineer Sweco.

The second team comprises French contractor Bouygues Travaux Public, Budimex – the Polish subsidiary of Spanish contractor Ferrovial – French consulting engineer Ingerop, Estonian civils company KMG Infra, and the Finnish arm of Canada’s WSP.

The first consortium will build the section between the port city of Pärnu and the Ülemiste suburb of Tallinn. The value of this contract is €394m.

The second contract covers the section between Ikla, on the Latvian border, and Pärnu. This is priced at €332m.

Rail Baltica will now carry out background checks on the selected companies, including assessments of past performance and financial standing.

Rail Baltica said a detailed schedule would be drawn up once the contracts were signed, but the overall project was due to be completed by the end of 2030 at a cost presently estimated to be €15.3bn.

The process of selecting the teams was assisted by Estonian procurement consultant BrainTeam in collaboration with Finnish project consultancy Vison.