City Hall plans to hold a tender to buy metro cars, inviting leading international railroad car manufacturers, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in an interview with Vedomosti published Monday.
"Whereas today we have to buy trains from one producer, Transmashholding, we'll hold an international tender that will be open to basically all major train manufacturers," Sobyanin said.
Based on the city's demand, experts estimated the amount of possible supply and service contracts at over 400 billion rubles ($13.3 billion).
Additionally, the city authorities will switch to a new form of supply contracts, with suppliers servicing their metro cars over a 30-year period, Sobyanin said.
A City Hall transportation official said all trains currently in use in the subway have been supplied by Transmashholding. But the metro's expansion plans provide an opportunity for equipping new lines and train depots with trains built by other manufacturers, he said.
Moscow metro currently uses 4,800 cars and plans to buy over 2,000 new ones until 2021. By then, the total length of the metro lines will increase from 314 to about 450 kilometers, Vedomosti said.
Many major international manufacturers — Siemens, Hyundai, Bombardier, Alstom, CAF, Hitachi — have expressed interest in supplying cars for the Moscow metro.
The city plans to hold the tender before the end of this year to receive first shipments in 2015, Vedomosti reported.