Ministry of Transports looking for a developer for the ring road of Deva - Orăştie

The National Highway and Road Company (CNADNR) relaunched the call for tenders for the "Construction of the Deva - Orăştie beltway at freeway standards". The contract is worth an estimated 253,375,705.12 Euros, VAT excluded. Tenders may be submitted until October 19, 2009, and they will be opened on the day of the deadline.

According to a press release, the project will be financed by the European Union under the ISPA program and by the Romanian government. The contract will have a duration of 48 months, and will be awarded to the bidder that submits the "most financially beneficial offer". Price will have a 30% weight and technical factors will have a 70% weight in the selection of the winner. The Minister of Transports, Radu Berceanu yesterday said in a conference that he changed the tender book terms, meaning that foreign companies which submit offers will have to meet certain requirements in terms of number of employees, equipment and works already delivered in Romania.

The Minister said: "There are cases where foreign companies with just 2-3 employees won auctions worth hundreds of millions of Euros, based on the data of the parent company. They would then subcontract the works to Romanian companies for bargain-basement prices. We want to avoid similar occurrences in the future, especially as in some cases, after offering dumping prices, the winners would later request additional financing". Minister Berceanu said that auction winners need to keep their price and deadline commitments and successfully complete the works without requesting additional payments.