January 15 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's state-owned railways operator BDZ Holding plans to spend up to 2 million levs ($1.169 million/2.02 million euro) this year to rent some 20 locomotives and 50 carriages in a bid to address train delays due to rolling stock shortage, local media reported on Tuesday.
BDZ intends to rent the rolling stock for periods of six months to one year and is studying what options can be offered by domestic and foreign companies, public radio BNR reported.
The company has allocated no financing for the purchase of new trains in 2019, BNR quoted the chairman of BDZ's board of directors, Grigori Grigorov, as saying.
The shortage of locomotives caused two to three train delays per day last year, Grigorov said. When accumulated, those delays are equal to 430,000 minutes, BNR said.
The holding company is financially stable, said Nikola Vassilev, executive director of BDZ Holding, said.
In October, the government extended by one year, to the end of 2019, the deadline by which BDZ Holding has to repay 62 million levs it received from the government in 2017. A total of 20 million levs were intended to cover payments due on BDZ’s second bond issue, while the remaining 42 million levs were needed to repay a loan provided to BDZ by the World Bank.
($=1.7111 euro)