Egypt reviews monorail offers

03 January 2016

Parliament approval required for proposed project finance

Egypt’s Ministry of Transport (MoT) is reviewing offers from two groups to build a monorail project between the 6th of October City and the Giza governorate.

A consortium led by Canada’s Bombardier along with local contractors Orascom Construction and Arab Contractors submitted technical and financial offers in early 2015, while a Chinese consortium led by China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) submitted an offer late last year.

A source close to the project tells MEED that the evaluation of the offers could be completed within a month, after which the proposed financing offers will have to be submitted and approved by the Egyptian parliament. Parliament approval - or disapproval - of the project could take anywhere between three to four months.

Both groups have proposed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) cum finance approach, with the Chinese group understood to have proposed providing loans through the Export-Import Bank of China.

If the proposed EPC+finance scheme is not approved by the parliament, then a new model, possibly a build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, could be considered, the source added.

This would entail a public tender for the monorail project, whose budget is estimated at $1.5bn.

The project was initially being supervised by the Housing Ministry, which prematurely announced in May that it has commissioned the Canadian-led consortium to build the project. The MoT subsequently took over the project in late 2015, and will now be the main agency responsible for executing the project in close partnership with the Housing Ministry.

The monorail will stretch 52km, and include 17 stations that will link 6th of October and Sheikh Zayed City with Giza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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