Welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service with me Lisa Louie. Today we are looking at what the Baltic countries are calling the project of the century, Rail Baltica.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are constructing a high-speed railway line that will connect the countries with each other and link them to Europe.

The project is supposed to bring economic boon.

But in countries marked by decades of Soviet occupation,

Rail Baltica, first of all, has a geopolitical meaning,

even more so since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A unbreakable link with the networks of Europe.

And yet, getting the high-speed rail on track won't be that straightforward.

Now they say that all the projects will cost about 20 to 30 billion euros.

So it is about 15%.

So will the Baltics be able to pay up? Music So it is about 15 fold increase.

So will the vortex be able to pay up?

I'm at a huge construction side here in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

There are people moving around cranes, there are people that are welding,

and what they're doing is constructing a huge passenger terminal. This is going to be the most northern point of what will one day be Rail Bautica.

Anwar Salomet's chief executive officer, Rail Baltic, Estonia.

There are approximately 215 kilometers of Rail Baltica mainline in Estonia, and in total

there are 817 in Baltics.

20 years on from joining the European Union, the Baltic country's railway system still has the Russian gauge,

that is to say, a track width of 1,520 millimeters.

Passengers have to physically change trains at the Polish border. That will no longer be

necessary with Rail Bortica, which will feature the European railway gauge of 1,435 millimeters.

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