Aktor, Terna pull out of Sofia metro
Aktor, a unit of Hellenic Technodomiki, and Terna have pulled out of a -185 million tender to build a section of the Sofia subway. Hochtief, Germany’s largest construction firm, J&P Avax, Greece’s second-largest builder, and Spanish builder Obrascon Huarte Lain are among nine companies that submitted binding bids by the January 4 deadline to build a 6.4-kilometer (4-mile) stretch of the Sofia metro, said Nikolai Boev, a Sofia City council spokesman. Hochtief grouped its bid with Bulgarian construction firm Glavbulgarstroy. «Of the 10 companies that filed the preliminary bids, only the consortium between Aktor and Terna didn’t file a binding bid,» Boev said in a phone interview in Sofia yesterday. «The bids contractor should be selected by February 15 and the contract should be signed in March.» Construction of the subway section with seven stations linking the Lozenetz suburb with the city center should be completed by 2011, he said. «Aktor will not participate in the Sofia metro tender,» Natasha Tsartsanuidu, a spokeswoman for the company, said in a phone interview from Athens. She gave no further details. Sofia’s subway project plans 52 kilometers of underground railway with 47 stations, the Sofia Metro said on its web site. The capital city now has a working 10.5-kilometer subway with eight stations linking the western suburbs with the city center, serving some 50,000 passengers a day. Japan’s Taisei Corp is now building a 4.2-kilometer section between the center and southern suburbs. (Bloomberg)
