November 13 (SeeNews) - Bosnia's Serb Republic has decided not to award a concession contract to China's Sinochem Capital Investment Management (Hong Kong) for construction of Doboj - Vukosavlje - Brcko motorway, local media reported on Wednesday.
After a comprehensive financial, legal, and technical analysis, the offer was found to be unfavourable, news daily Nezavisne Novine reported, quoting information from the Serb republic's transport ministry.
Talks on the project could resume in the forthcoming period if the Chinese company decides to correct its bid, Nezavisne quoted representatives of the ministry as saying.
In September 2018, the Serb Republic government signed a memorandum of understanding with a Chinese consortium comprising Sinochem Capital Co and China Orient Asset Management for the construction of the Doboj-Vukosavlje and Vukosavlje-Brcko motorway sections.
According to Nezavisne, Sinochem Capital Co has subsequently transferred all its rights under the MoU to Sinochem Capital Investment Management (Hong Kong), which has submitted the binding offer for the concession contract.
The Doboj - Vukosavlje - Brcko motorway will stretch over some 100 kilometres in the northern part of the Serb Republic. The Doboj-Vukosavlje section lies on pan-European Corridor Vc on the territory of Bosnia's Serb Republic and will be 46.6 kilometres long. The future Vukosavlje-Brcko section will help link the northern town of Brcko with Corridor Vc. In addition, the motorway would lead to Bijeljina, on the Serbian border, via Brcko.
Corridor Vc has a total length of 700 km and connects the port of Ploce in Croatia with Budapest in Hungary via Bosnia. Its length in Bosnia is some 340 km.
The Serb Republic is one of two autonomous entities forming Bosnia and Herzegovina. The other one is the Federation.