Page 24 - bne_newspaper_July_19_2019

Weekly Lists
July 19, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 24
bne:
Infrastructure
Builder of €15bn Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel signs MOU with three Chinese contractors
Bulgaria picks French- German consortium as Sofia Airport concessionaire
FinEst Bay Area Development, the company behind the project to build an undersea tunnel between Estonia with Finland, signed a memorandum of understanding with three Chinese contractors to design and build the 100-kilometre link.
The project’s developer picked China Railway International Group, China Railway Engineering Company, and China Communications Construction Company for the job. China is keen to build the tunnel as part of its Belt and Road initiative to link Asia with Europe, Middle East, and Africa by infrastructure facilitating trade.
The Chinese financing company Touchstone Capital Partners is providing €15bn funding for the project.
Bulgaria has selected SofConnect - a consortium between French- registered Meridiam Eastern European Investments and the Munich Airport operator - as concessionaire of Sofia Airport, Investor.bg reported on July 17.
The news was not expected as in May the transport ministry an- nounced that another bidder - a consortium comprising France's Aeroports de Paris and Turkey's TAV - had offered the highest concession fee. However, the SofConnect consortium gained the highest score during the assessment procedure, getting 86.12 out of 100 points.
The consortium has offered to pay a concession fee of €24.5mn per year and invest €608mn. The winner will run Sofia Airport for 35 years and will build a third terminal up to 10 years after the sign- ing of the contract, Investor.bg reported, quoting Transport Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on July 17 opened the Beineu–Akzhigit international highway connecting to the Uzbek border.
The new highway is set to help boost trade volumes between the two Central Asian nations - relations between Uzbekistan and its neighbours have been improving since 2017. Trade turnover between the two ex-Soviet states amounted to $3bn in 2018.
The project is also seen as beneficial for China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to implement a number of infrastructure projects across Central Asia to increase its transit potential for Chinese goods.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan launch new transit highway