Egypt’s Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Central Unit has revealed to MEED that invitations to bid for three major PPP projects are expected to be released by the end of November.

“There are three projects awaiting finalisation of the regulations for the new PPP law,” said PPP Central Unit director Rania Zayed. “We expect these within the next four weeks and we are working on tendering by the end of November.”

The schemes are wastewater treatment works at Abu Rawash and 6 October City, and the Rod el-Farag highway. Invitations to bid had been expected for all three projects during the third quarter of 2010, but have been delayed by the development of regulations to accompany the country’s new PPP law, which came into force on 1 July.

A total of 20 consortiums are shortlisted for the three projects. Five groups are expected to bid for the Abu Rawash wastewater project. The project involves taking over and upgrading an existing 1.2 million cubic-metre-a-day wastewater treatment works. Five firms are also prequalified for the 34km Rod el-Farag project, which will connect the existing Cairo ring road to the Cairo to Alexandria highway.

On Cairo’s 6 October City wastewater treatment works, 10 firms have prequalified after the process was reopened to developers in May 2010. After the original prequalification process closed in December 2009, the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development moved the proposed plant location from the south to the west of the city and removed the requirement to operate an existing works from the PPP contract.

Egypt is aggressively pursuing a PPP programme with up to 25 per cent of its infrastructure investment set to be delivered using this model.