Page 23 - bne_newspaper_June_02_2017

Weekly Lists
June 2, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 23
bne:
Infrastructure
Uzbekistan to build $320mn high-speed railroad around Tashkent
Turkish Airlines reportedly seeking financing for move to new Istanbul airport
Slovak PM promises new road links for down-at-heel east if debt brake is scrapped
Uzbekistan is planning to this year launch construction of a $320mn high-speed railway around Tashkent, Trend news agency reported on May 30, citing the Uzbek president’s press service.
The project is aimed at improving the flow of day-time traffic in the capital and providing an alternative to the presently overloaded public transportation in the city. The rail option will allow Uzbeks to circle the city in a single hour, the report said.
The length of the ring-railroad will reach $72.1 kilometres and it will include 26 stations.
Turkish Airlines (THY) is seeking options to finance a move from its hub to Istanbul’s third airport, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2018, unnamed people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg on May 29.
THY requires the IGA consortium to build the needed facility and then to lease it to the Turkish flag carrier. The airline has held talks with local and foreign lenders as well as export credit agencies to obtain about $850mn worth of loan to finance the move, according to Bloomberg’s sources. They reportedly added that the company was even considering issuing debt securities.
The Slovak government continues to prepare road projects in the hope that it can scrap the constitutional debt brake, local media reported on May 29.
Slovak officials recently claimed that the country cannot build any more new roads without scrapping the debt brake. That was just the latest push from a government that has sought for some time to evade, or preferably dismantle, the constitutional limit on state borrowing.
Pressing on the regional disparity button, Prime Minister Robert Fico said regions in the south and east of Slovakia could see the construction of new motorways, Pravda reports, should the state be freed to spend several billion euros. Poor infrastructure linking the industrialised west of the country with the poorer east is one of Slovakia’s key structural imbalances.