8 Bidders Vie to Build Danube Bridge Infrastructure in Bulgaria

Novinite.com

Eight bidders submitted offers to build the road and railway infrastructure on the Bulgarian side of the second bridge over Danube linking the EU's two newest member states.

Four companies made individual bids - Czech OHL ZS, Greek Terna, Spain's FCC Constuccion and Constructora Hispanica.

The other four bidders are consortia led by Turkey's Dogus, Spainish Copasa, Czech Subtera and Germany's Dywidag, respectively.

Glavbolgarstroy is the only Bulgarian company that wants to participate in the public tender.

The tender was announced on December 2006 and the final date for submitting offers was 21 May at noon.

The bridge is to link the Bulgarian Danube port of Vidin to the Romanian city of Calafat by road and rail. It is a key element of a European transport corridor from the German city of Dresden to Istanbul in Turkey.

The facility will be 1971 meter-long including a road and a rail bridges with two lanes in each direction as well as one railway track. The project will cost EUR 236 M to be completed.

Funding came from ISPA programmes of the EU, from the European Investment Bank and other international financial institutions. Some national input is also to be found in the financing of the bridge.

Bulgaria and Romania, which both joined the European Union on January 1, signed an agreement to build the Vidin-Calafat bridge in 2000, but various bureaucratic obstacles delayed the project.