NIB to host Northern Dimension secretariat on transport and logistics

The permanent secretariat of the recently established Northern Dimension Partnership on Transport and Logistics, NDPTL, will be located at the Nordic Investment Bank in Helsinki as of 1 January 2011. 

The eleven countries belonging to the Partnership have endorsed setting up a secretariat that will be located in NIB’s Headquarters. The secretariat will provide administrative and technical support to the Partnership’s steering group, facilitate communication between the partners, prepare and update project implementation plans as well as collect data on relevant projects and measures. 

“We hope that the new Partnership will develop into a competent tool for all partners and stakeholders to address common challenges in the sector of transport, communications and logistics and speed up the realisation of long-time needed endeavours in this area to help the region improve its competitiveness,” says Johnny Åkerholm, President and CEO of NIB. 

The NDPTL is an umbrella structure set up to supervise regional cooperation and mobilise funding for the objectives of improving the major transport connections between the Northern Dimension countries: Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Belarus and Norway. The Memorandum of Understanding to govern the NDPTL was signed in October 2009. 

The Partnership will cover all modes of transport including road, rail, inland waterways, aviation, and maritime. It will focus on both infrastructure and non-infrastructure related bottlenecks with the view to improving transport connections and logistic processes between the countries of the region.

The Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) is the common international financial institution of the eight Nordic and Baltic countries. NIB provides long-term financing to the energy, environmental, transport, logistics and communications, and innovation sectors for projects that strengthen competitiveness and enhance the environment. NIB has the highest possible credit rating, AAA/aaa, with the leading rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s.

For further information, please contact 

Johnny Åkerholm, President and CEO, at +358 10 618 001, info@nib.int

Jukka Ahonen, Director of Communications, at +358 50 387 5774, jukka.ahonen@nib.int