For companies/international consortium signed in the competition for executor of the design and building of the railway and electrification of the “Parvomay-Dimitrovgrad-Simeonovgrad-Harmanli-Svilengrad-Greek and Turkish border” section.

The offers were opened in public yesterday at 15:00 PM in the building of Bulgaria’s transport ministry in the presence of representatives of the bidders, the ministry announced.

The design and construction of the sections is the second phase of the project for Reconstruction and Electrification of the Plovdiv-Svilengrad-Greek/Turkish Border railway. The section is about 104 km long and will allow train compositions to move at 160 km/h. The execution of the first stage (Plovdiv (Krumovo)-Parvomay section), which is 37.7 m long, is already in process.

The tender procedure was announced on 20 December 2006. The deadline for submission of offers expired today at 12:00 AM local time. The procedure is organized under EC’s public procurements assignment rules.

Offers were submitted by:

1. Italy’s Societa Italiana per condotte d’aqua” – 299,462,727 euros;

2. international consortium DOSTAT with leading partner France’s ALSTOM including: TSO (France) and Dogus (Turkey) – 377,294,868 euro and price rebate of 2.5%, i.e. 9,432,372 euro;

3. Italy’s ASTALDI – 162,537,388 euros;

4. International consortium “Marica Express Joint Venture” with leading partner Czech’s OHL JS and members: Germany’s Leonard Weiss, Wiebe, and Herman Kirchner – 398,644,452 euros;

The project for the reconstruction and electrification of the Plovdiv-Svilengrad railway is of national significance and is one of the main infrastructure projects of the Bulgarian government, ministry of transport announced. This project is expected to increase Bulgarian railway transport’s competitiveness and to help us faster integrate in the European transport network.

The project is a part of IV and IX European Transport Corridors and is implemented with the financial assistance of the European Commission. The funds for its financing have been granted by EU’s ISPA program – gratuitous aid of 153 mln euros, European Investment Bank – a credit of 150 mln euros, and 37 mln euros from the state budget.