April 18 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government said on Tuesday it has extended the deadline for submitting non-binding offers in a tender for a 25-year concession contract for operating Belgrade Nikola Tesla international airport to May 25.
The previous deadline expired on March 10.
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The deadline was extended upon the request of qualified participants and taking into account the fact that a vast number of questions has been received related to the clarification of requirements, the government said in a notification posted on the website of Belgrade airport operator Aerodrom Nikola Tesla [BEL:AERO].
With the deadline extended, all interested investors will have time to prepare the needed documentation for bidding, the government added.
The awarding of the concession contract will be executed in two phases, with investors submitting non-binding bids in the first one and binding proposals in the second.
Eligible bidders must not hold more than 20% of the concessionaire of an airport which has served more than one million passengers at any point in time over a twelve-month period from January 1, 2016, and which is located within a 450 km radius from Belgrade, the government said in the public invitation for tendering published in the Official Gazette in February.
Bidders shall have been the operator of an international airport with a traffic of over five million passengers annually for at least two years over the past ten years and shall have equity in excess of 500 million euro ($532.6 million).
The Serbian government owns 83.1% of Aerodrom Nikola Tesla, the operator of Belgrade airport, which booked a 22% year-on-year rise in net profit to 21.6 million euro in the first ten months of 2016.
($ = 0.9388 euro)