January 5 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian transport ministry has opened a new tender worth an estimated 1.2 billion levs ($669.1 million/613.6 million euro) for the procurement and 15-year maintenance of 20 single-deck electric push-pull train sets, information published on the public procurement register's website showed.
The contract is to be awarded after negotiations with potential bidders, without prior publication of a call for competition, according to the information published on Thursday.
The deadline for submitting offers is January 17.
The previous tender for the procurement and maintenance of the same number of rolling stock, which had been launched by the transport ministry in September, was cancelled, according to data published on the procurement register's website earlier this week. The tender had attracted two bids, by Spanish passenger train manufacturer Talgo and CRRC Qingdao Sifang, a unit of Chinese state-owned rolling stock manufacturer CRCC.
The two submitted bids did not meet the technical criteria stipulated in the tender notice and the participants were removed from participation, a decision by the transport ministry showed.
The ministry is preparing to relaunch in the coming weeks a separate tender for the supply of 35 single-deck electric trains, transport minister Georgi Gvozdeykov told public television BNT on Wednesday. The 1.1 billion levs tender was suspended in October following a complaint filed by Czech engineering group Skoda Transportation.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)