SOFIA (Bulgaria), May 9 (SeeNews) – Bulgaria's government intends to relaunch a tender for awarding a 35-year concession contract for the operation of Sofia International Airport, transport minister Ivaylo Moskovsk has said.
“Until another source of financing presents itself, I will continue to follow the initial plan to use the funds from the airport concession to finance Holding company BDZ,” Ivaylo Moskovski said in a video posted on his official Facebook page on Saturday.
The state-owned railways operator Holding BDZ had a debt of around 440 million levs ($245.4 million/225.3 million) in November 2016, when prime minister Boyko Borissov submitted the resignation of his centre-right minority coalition government, Moskovski said.
Following the resignation of Borissov's coalition cabinet, a caretaker government was appointed, which cancelled the airport concession tender in April. Meanwhile, GERB won early parliamentary elections in March and Borissov formed a new coalition government which took office last week. Moskovski was appointed transport minister in the new cabinet - a position he held in the previous government led by Borissov.
“The announcement that [China's] CRRC intends to invest in BDZ seems unrealistic,” Moskovski added in the video.
In March, the caretaker transport ministry said Chinese rolling stock manufacturer CRRC had proposed to invest 300 million euro under a project for strategic partnership with BDZ, which envisages re-financing BDZ’s outstanding debt and delivery of new rolling stock.
Last week, German airport operator Fraport announced it was still very interested in winning a concession contract for operating Bulgaria's Sofia International Airport, according to German media reports.
In June 2016, the transport ministry under Moskovski launched a tender for a Sofia Airport concession contract, seeking at least 550 million levs as a one-off upfront concession payment.
The deadline for submitting bids had been extended four times before the caretaker government cancelled the tender.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)