December 13 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's competition regulator said on Thursday it will look into a complaint over a requirement in a 430.5 million levs ($250 million/ 220 million euro) public tender for construction of a section of Struma motorway, effectively suspending the tender.
The complaint against the requirement of the government's Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA) was filed by local construction company European Roads on December 11, the Commission for Protection of Competition said in a notice.
According to tender documents published by RIA, the candidates must have a minimum cumulative turnover of 100 million levs from engineering, construction, reconstruction and rehabilitation of roads and motorways in the past three full fiscal years.
In its explanations, RIA stated, in response to a question from an interested party, that revenue from construction of railways can not be used to cover the minimum turnover requirement.
RIA launched the tender for construction of the section of Struma motorway between the towns of Kresna and Krupnik, in southwestern Bulgaria, in August. Last month, the deadline for submitting offers was extender from November 29 to December 17.
The Struma motorway, with a total length of 173.3 km, is part of pan-European transport Corridor IV, linking Bulgaria's capital Sofia with Kulata crossing on the border with Greece.
(1 euro=1.95583 levs)