The contract with the successful bidder for the rehabilitation of the Plovdiv-Bourgas railway line was signed at an official ceremony today in the presence of Minister of Transport, Information Technologies and Communications Aleksandar Tsvetkov and Italian Ambassador in Sofia Stefano Benazzo.

"I am happy that today we sign such an important contract for the railway transport and that we managed to save 110 million BGN to the Bulgarian and the European tax-payers," said Aleksandar Tsvetkov. He recalled that the first tender for the selection of project contractor was terminated due to the excessively high prices asked in the offers.

In the second tender procedure the consortium, GCF - SK13 - Thrace Railinfra, was named as successful bidder. It offered to build the section for 316,968,850.42 BGN (before VAT). This allowed saving 110 million BGN, which is the difference between the lowest offer of the first tender and the offer of the present contractor.

The project on the rehabilitation of the railway infrastructure along the Plovdiv - Bourgas line has been divided into separate positions, for which the contractor offered the following prices:

Position 1 - Rehabilitation of Mihailovo-Kaloyanovets railway section - 29,652,343.58 BGN before VAT; term - 18 months;

Position 2 - Rehabilitation of railway sections Stara Zagora -Yambol and Zavoi-Zimnitsa - 151,536,000.19 BGN before VAT; term - 43 months;

Position 3 - Rehabilitation of Tserkovski-Karnobat railway section - 135,780,506.65 BGN before VAT; term - 38 months.

The contract was signed by the Director General of the Railway Infrastructure National Company, Milcho Lambrev, and the Consortium's Manager Eduardo Rossi.

The contract is signed for the implementation of the project, Upgrading of Sections of the Railway Infrastructure of Plovdiv-Bourgas Railway Line. The project is financed under the EU Cohesion Fund through OP Transport. The project's budget totals some 595 million BGN, as the eligible costs equal 490 million BGN and the grant aid - 427 million BGN.

The project has been approved by the Managing Authority of OP Transport and was submitted to the European Commission for assessment on 19 January 2011.