SOFIA (Bulgaria), June 8 (SeeNews) – A Bulgarian-Austrian tie-up has won the tender for the construction of a 34.4-kilometre section of the Maritsa motorway, Bulgarian media reported on Wednesday.
The Maritsa Highway consortium comprising Bulgarian company Patnostroitelna Tehnika and Austria's Porr Technobau und Umwelt, has offered the lowest price of 122.1 million levs ($90.8 million/62.4 million euro), outbidding 10 other candidates. The price does not include Value Added Tax.
If the selection of winner is not appealed, construction works will begin within a month, local business daily Dnevnik (www.dnevnik.bg) quoted Regional Development Minister Rosen Plevneliev as saying. The tendered motorway section links Dimitrovgrad with Harmanli, in southern Bulgaria.
In March, Italy's Cooperativa Muratori e Cementisti offered the lowest price of 133.1 million levs for the construction of another section of the motorway, from Orizovo to Dimitrovgrad. The tender procedure was appealed by another bidder and currently the regional development ministry is awaiting a supreme court ruling for assigning the contract, Dnevnik quoted Plevneliev as saying.
The Bulgarian government plans to complete by 2013 the construction of the Maritsa motorway, part of pan-European transport Corridor 4 and the Trans-European Motorway.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)