A Spanish construction firm will break ground on an 85 km stretch of the Kyiv-Berlin highway in Ukraine later this month.
The Kyiv-Berlin highway, or highway #3, is one of several European transport corridors approved by the European Transport Ministers in 1992 during a meeting on the island of Crete.
The stretch of highway connecting Lviv with the Ukrainian town of Krakovets, which sits on the Ukrainian-Polish border, will be completed by 2008, said Stepan Lukashyk, deputy head of the Lviv Oblast Administration.
The Lviv-Krakovets stretch of the state-owned highway will be managed by Transmagistral, a consortium registered in the Yavoriv Special Economic Zone, under a concession agreement. The agreement is valid for 49 years from the date it was signed in 1999.
Transmagistral selected the Spanish firm NECSO to serve as general contractor for the project, valued at Hr 1.64 billion, during an October 2003 tender.
Polish Warbud and Ukraine’s Aerobud also participated in the tender, said Volodymyr Fedyuk, Transmagistral’s vice president.
The tender requires the general contractor – NECSO – to acquire 60 percent of construction costs, or about Hr 980 million, on the basis of a long-term loan to Transmagistral. Fedyuk would not disclose the specific credit terms, but said that Transmagistral would use revenues generated from toll payments to pay off NECSO’s loan.
The remaining 40 percent of funds for the construction project will come from Ukravtodor, the state agency for road construction.
Toll fees will be set by the government and will range from Hr 0.29 to Hr 0.69 per km, according to a vehicle’s size.
The current Lviv-Krakovets road was unable to handle traffic increases caused by the Krakovets customs checkpoint, which was opened in 1998. According to project estimates, the new four-lane highway will be able to handle 20,000 cars, traveling at 150 km per hour, per day.
Additionally, the state will reconstruct and open a toll-free alternative highway, Lukashyk said.
In accordance with Ukrainian law, 90 percent of the workforce and 70 percent of construction materials used in this project should be of Ukrainian origin. NECSO plans to employ more than 10,000 Ukrainian workers for the project, Fedyuk said.
NECSO’s 2003 turnover was three billion euros. The company did not provide comments by the time the Post went to press.
