Finland. City of Vantaa

The 5-year-maturity loan totalling EUR 60 million has been provided for an infrastructure investment programme aimed at reconstructing the Kehä III ring road and renovating other existing roads in the city of Vantaa. The Kehä III project will remove the traffic lights in the busiest sector of the Kehä III by constructing new interchanges, thus improving the traffic flow.

The ring road Kehä III lies in the Helsinki metropolitan area and is part of the European route E18. The road is significant both nationally and internationally, connecting the port with the road network, as well as the City of Turku with the border crossing point to Russia.

Vantaa is the fourth largest city in Finland, located just north of Helsinki. As the home of the international Helsinki-Vantaa Airport and an important cross-roads for main highways in Finland, Vantaa is a natural logistics hub.

The road construction project will generate environmental impacts both during the construction phase and the operational phase. The key environmental issues of the project are noise and environmental impacts on nature, such as soil and groundwater contamination, and disturbance of habitats. The positive effect of the project is enhanced traffic safety. Traffic incidents are estimated to decrease by 30% after the project has been completed.