Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) has completed the technical evaluation for the first civil works package for the first phase of Cairo Metro Line 4.

This will be followed by the submission and evaluation of pricing.

The sole bidder is a joint venture of Japan’s Taisei Corporation and local Orascom Construction Industries.

MEED understands this phase of the project will comprise two civil works, one rolling stock and one systems package.

Japan Bank for International Cooperation (Jbic) is providing funding for the first phase of Line 4.

NAT has earlier prequalified two Japanese firms - Sojitz Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation - for the rolling stock package. Four groups sought to prequalify for the systems package in 2016. They include:

• Mitsubishi/Orascom Construction
• Marubeni (Japan)
• Hitachi (Japan)/Sumitomo (Japan)
• Toyo (Japan)/Mitsui(Japan)

The authority also awarded Nippon Koei the consultancy contract for this phase of the metro in October 2016.

Line 4 will be constructed in two phases and will run for 43 kilometres from west to east Cairo.

It will connect 6th October and the New Cairo satellite cities with the existing metro network, catering to areas including Al-Ahram, Faisal, Giza, Nasr City and Al-Azhar University.

The first phase will have a total length of 18.8km and feature 17 stations. It will extend from the multimodal station west of the Ring Road to the Grand Egyptian Museum and on to El-Remayah Square to link with the Giza station of Line 2, El-Malek el-Saleh station of Line 1, and to Al-Fustat station