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Opportunities: Infrastructure & Construction |
The information below is provided
by Prague Business Journal
www.pbj.cz
Fast transport links are the road
to riches, according to economists and foreign investors
who often insist on a highway as a condition for selecting
the Czech Republic as a site for their greenfield projects.
The current situation in building-up of motorways and
high-speed railway corridors is raising some concerns,
however.
The state-run Reditelství Silnic a Dálnic
(Roads and Motorways Directorate) has announced that it
will probably not complete any new motorway sections this
year, leaving the Czech motorway network at its current
length of 520 kilometers. This year construction of the
section of D3 motorway connecting Prague and Ceské
Budejovice should begin together with a part of the D5
motorway bypass round Plzen, a section of the D8 from
Prague to Ústí nad Labem, and the D11 to
Hradec Králove and Poland.
The Transport and Communications Ministry predicts a lack
of highway construction funding after 2003 due to a fall
off in privatization proceeds, which help feed its special
transport fund. Last year these proceeds totaled Kc 13.2
billion, or over 40 percent of last year´s Kc 34.8
billion transport fund budget. Because of the lack of
money, the government has decided to allow private investors
to co-finance construction projects. The transport fund
budget has been raised to over Kc 41 billion this year
with Kc 3.7 billion earmarked for road and motorway construction
and repairs.
The D47 motorway project from Lipník nad Becvou
in North Moravia to the border with Poland which should
be built by Israeli company Housing & Construction,
has been delayed. The government and the concern haven´t
reach an agreement about the definitive price of the 80-km
motorway yet. According to reports in the media, the consortium
led by Housing & Construction has proposed to build
the motorway for Kc 51 billion. Czech negotiators say
Kc 49 billion would be acceptable. The government decided
to place the order with Housing & Construction without
a tender in March 2001. Housing & Construction wants
to build the motorway by the B.O.T. (Build, Operate, Transfer)
method. Construction is to be launched in May 2002 and
the first section should be completed in 2006.
The Czech Republic gets maximum possible EU contributions
for highway construction. The European Union via the ISPA
program will appropriate for this purposes over Kc 1 billion,
spokeswoman for the Finance Ministry, Jana Vargová
said. The Czech Republic has already received over Kc
5 billion within the ISPA programme, which was established
in 2000 as an additional EU accession fund for ten candidate
countries of Central and East Europe. Its purpose is to
help establish the necessary transport and environmental
infrastructure. ISPA's overall annual budget is more than
EUR 1 billion.
The government has also recently approved a plan to take
a 210 million euro loan from the
European Investment Bank (EIB) to extend the country's
highway infrastructure, officials said.
The EIB, the European Union's arm for long-term financing,
has lent the Czech Republic vast sums for infrastructure
investments to help the country prepare for EU membership,
expected from around 2004. Transport Minister Jaromír
Schling told the 25-year loan would be used to build a
bypass of Plzen, a missing link on the highway connecting
capital Prague with Germany.
The problems don´t apply to highways only, but to
railways too. The modernisation of the first railway corridor
from Decín, North Bohemia, to Breclav, South Moravia,
will be delayed by a year due to a postponed launch of
two projects to be funded with the EU's ISPA sources.
The project worth Kc 36.5 billion (some 384 km of railway
tracks) was to be completed this year.
The railway operator Ceské Dráhy will not
obtain the first of the seven high speed trains until
the spring of 2003, spokesman Pavel Tesar said. The supply
of the first trains called pendolino is stipulated by
the contract and scheduled for the spring of 2003. The
high-speed train will be put in trial operation next year
and its standard operation will not begin earlier than
in December 2003. High-speed trains will ride at a speed
of 160km/hour in the Czech Republic and 200km/hour abroad.
Ceské Dráhy will buy seven seven-carriage
trains from the consortium led by Alstom Ferroviaria for
Kc 4.37billion.
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