BUCHAREST (Romania), November 1 (SeeNews) – A consortium comprising France's Alstom, Greece's Aktor and Romanian companies Arcada and Euroconstruct Trading'98 has won a tender for upgrades on a railway section in Romania with an offer of 2.72 billion lei ($638 million/573 million euro), Romanian railway infrastructure operator CFR said.
Some 81.74% of the funding necessary for the rehabilitation of 28.2 km of railroad between Apata and Cata, part of Brasov-Sighisoara section, is covered by non-reimbursable EU funds under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme, CFR said in a statement on Thursday.
The remainder will be provided from the state budget.
The procurement contract will be signed by both parties following the legal appeal period for the tender.
Initially, the tender was won by Turkish companies Alsim Alarko and Makyol with a 2.85 billion lei offer in January, but following legal appeals, CFR reevaluated offers and selected another winner for the contract, it said in the release.
The sub-section is part of the Rhine - Danube Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
The project aims to upgrade railway infrastructure and superstructure in those sections to allow for a maximum travel speed of 160 km/h of passenger trains and 120 km/h for freight trains, CFR added.
Rehabilitation works will be carried out on bridges, underpasses and tunnels. Also, civil works will be carried out in several railway stations including signalling, optics fiber and electrical installations.
This is the biggest modernisation project out of seven for which CFR has obtained total financing of 1.13 billion euro ($1.26 billion) under the CEF mechanism in April 2018.
Alstom is a French multinational company operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling and locomotives.
Aktor is one of the largest construction companies in Greece, a member of the Ellaktor Group.
Arcada is a Romanian construction company founded in 1994 active in civil engineering works.
Euroconstruct Trading '98 is a Romanian company specialised in civil constructions works.
(1 euro = 4.7545 Romanian lei)