BULGARIA will receive 70 million euro from the European Unions ISPA programme to build the second bridge to Romania over the Danube River, Finance Minister Milen Velchev said on February 18.
Velchev and European Commission delegation head in Bulgaria Dimitris Kourkoulas signed a financial memorandum on the terms of the agreement in Sofia that same day.
The project, expected to be finished by the end of 2008, will connect the Bulgarian town of Vidin, in the northwest of the country, and the Romanian town of Kalafat, thus providing a second link over the Danube.
Romania and Bulgaria signed the agreement for the project in March 2000 but it never got off the ground for lack of funding.
Through the recently signed agreement Bulgaria will absorb 79 per cent of the ISPA financing allocated for a six-year period, Velchev said.
Germanys KfW already provided a grant of two million euro and a loan of 18 million euro; Agence France de Development provided a five million euro loan; and the EBRD lent 70 million euro. The Bulgarian Government has put up 60.8 million euro in co-financing. The total amount of money collected for the launch of the project is almost 226 million euro.
The signing of the memorandum is the final step in bankrolling the project, Velchev said. It will answer expectations for growth in international traffic to and from Greece, Turkey and the Middle East, he said.
Kourkoulas said the bridge would help eliminate the last obstacles to Bulgarias link with the Middle East. Building the bridge will cut transportation costs and boost local trade and the development of the two regions, which are among the poorest in Bulgaria and Romania.
We hope the actual construction of the bridge will start this year, Deputy Prime Minister and Transport and Communications Minister Nikolai Vassilev said. The project must be completed in 2008.
The bridge will have 1440 m of road and 2480 m of railway. There will be a dual-track railway, a dual two-lane carriageway, a pedestrian strip and an emergency lane. The adjoining infrastructure is over 15 km long and includes a new road linking the existing roads with the bridge and road junctures. The adjoining railway infrastructure is over 11.5 km long.
A shortlist will be made up in March to select a designer and a builder, Vassilev said. Contracts will be signed with them in November. Tenders for construction of the adjoining road and railway infrastructure will be invited in mid-2005. The contracts will be implemented from early 2006.
The already visible kick-off of the construction of the second bridge over the Danube is just a part of a series of ambitious fast-track infrastructure package worth almost two billion euro that Bulgaria has planned. The ambitious plans by this country were commented in the February 17 edition of the Financial Times (FT).
Approached by press, Vassilev has said he wants all the projects to be awarded and contracts signed before parliamentary elections in June that could remove the Government from office.
The priorities are the Danube Bridge 2, a toll highway from Plovdiv to the border with Turkey, build-operate-transfer deals for the airports and seaports of Bourgas and Varna on the Black Sea, and an upgrade of the rail network, according to press.
They quote Vassilev as saying that he learned how to concentrate resources on a few big projects while working in London as an investment banker in the 1990s. He wants to make Bulgaria the route of choice for transit traffic carried by road, rail and on the Danube river between the European Union, Turkey and the Middle East, the FT said.
The region has seen an explosion in traffic since 2000, as stability has returned to the Balkans following a decade of war and political upheaval. Transit through Bulgaria to Turkey, Romania and Greece has doubled. The volume of freight, mainly carried on trucks, increased by almost 30 per cent last year to about seven million tons.
Demand for transport services in the Balkans is projected to rise by seven to 10 per cent a year after Bulgaria and Romania join the EU, and as Turkey makes progress with its accession negotiations. Long-term projections show much bigger amounts of traffic through this region, not just to and from Turkey after EU accession, but also involving central Asian countries and even China.
Bulgaria plans to spend more than 400 million euro this year on the fast-track projects, according to FT. Funding would come mainly from pre-accession transfers from Brussels, soft loans from the European Investment Bank and last years budget surplus. Grants from EU structural funds would allow big increases in infrastructure spending after 2007.
But concession deals involving international investors will be crucial for upgrading infrastructure quickly and providing high-quality services, Vassilev was quoted as saying.
Work is due to start next year on a 340 million euro project to upgrade and electrify the main railway line from Plovdiv to Svilengrad near the Turkish border. The Danube port of Lom is being modernised to handle container traffic at a cost of 30 million euro.
Velchev and European Commission delegation head in Bulgaria Dimitris Kourkoulas signed a financial memorandum on the terms of the agreement in Sofia that same day.
The project, expected to be finished by the end of 2008, will connect the Bulgarian town of Vidin, in the northwest of the country, and the Romanian town of Kalafat, thus providing a second link over the Danube.
Romania and Bulgaria signed the agreement for the project in March 2000 but it never got off the ground for lack of funding.
Through the recently signed agreement Bulgaria will absorb 79 per cent of the ISPA financing allocated for a six-year period, Velchev said.
Germanys KfW already provided a grant of two million euro and a loan of 18 million euro; Agence France de Development provided a five million euro loan; and the EBRD lent 70 million euro. The Bulgarian Government has put up 60.8 million euro in co-financing. The total amount of money collected for the launch of the project is almost 226 million euro.
The signing of the memorandum is the final step in bankrolling the project, Velchev said. It will answer expectations for growth in international traffic to and from Greece, Turkey and the Middle East, he said.
Kourkoulas said the bridge would help eliminate the last obstacles to Bulgarias link with the Middle East. Building the bridge will cut transportation costs and boost local trade and the development of the two regions, which are among the poorest in Bulgaria and Romania.
We hope the actual construction of the bridge will start this year, Deputy Prime Minister and Transport and Communications Minister Nikolai Vassilev said. The project must be completed in 2008.
The bridge will have 1440 m of road and 2480 m of railway. There will be a dual-track railway, a dual two-lane carriageway, a pedestrian strip and an emergency lane. The adjoining infrastructure is over 15 km long and includes a new road linking the existing roads with the bridge and road junctures. The adjoining railway infrastructure is over 11.5 km long.
A shortlist will be made up in March to select a designer and a builder, Vassilev said. Contracts will be signed with them in November. Tenders for construction of the adjoining road and railway infrastructure will be invited in mid-2005. The contracts will be implemented from early 2006.
The already visible kick-off of the construction of the second bridge over the Danube is just a part of a series of ambitious fast-track infrastructure package worth almost two billion euro that Bulgaria has planned. The ambitious plans by this country were commented in the February 17 edition of the Financial Times (FT).
Approached by press, Vassilev has said he wants all the projects to be awarded and contracts signed before parliamentary elections in June that could remove the Government from office.
The priorities are the Danube Bridge 2, a toll highway from Plovdiv to the border with Turkey, build-operate-transfer deals for the airports and seaports of Bourgas and Varna on the Black Sea, and an upgrade of the rail network, according to press.
They quote Vassilev as saying that he learned how to concentrate resources on a few big projects while working in London as an investment banker in the 1990s. He wants to make Bulgaria the route of choice for transit traffic carried by road, rail and on the Danube river between the European Union, Turkey and the Middle East, the FT said.
The region has seen an explosion in traffic since 2000, as stability has returned to the Balkans following a decade of war and political upheaval. Transit through Bulgaria to Turkey, Romania and Greece has doubled. The volume of freight, mainly carried on trucks, increased by almost 30 per cent last year to about seven million tons.
Demand for transport services in the Balkans is projected to rise by seven to 10 per cent a year after Bulgaria and Romania join the EU, and as Turkey makes progress with its accession negotiations. Long-term projections show much bigger amounts of traffic through this region, not just to and from Turkey after EU accession, but also involving central Asian countries and even China.
Bulgaria plans to spend more than 400 million euro this year on the fast-track projects, according to FT. Funding would come mainly from pre-accession transfers from Brussels, soft loans from the European Investment Bank and last years budget surplus. Grants from EU structural funds would allow big increases in infrastructure spending after 2007.
But concession deals involving international investors will be crucial for upgrading infrastructure quickly and providing high-quality services, Vassilev was quoted as saying.
Work is due to start next year on a 340 million euro project to upgrade and electrify the main railway line from Plovdiv to Svilengrad near the Turkish border. The Danube port of Lom is being modernised to handle container traffic at a cost of 30 million euro.
