Scheme comprises a light rail transit and freight line in 10th of Ramadan City
Egypts National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) is now in the final stage of negotiations with a consortium led by Chinas Avic International for the contract to develop a light railway transit (LRT) in 10th of Ramadan City located in Egypts Sharqia governorate.
The contract is a direct order, according to a NAT spokesperson, and is estimated to cost $1.5bn.
No timeline for the contract award has been given. The scheme, however, is likely to be procured using a combination of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and financing model.
MEED earlier reported that a commercial contract is scheduled to be drafted and presented for approval to the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China, which will provide funding for the project.
Final government approval is expected once all potential amendments required by the export credit agency (ECA) are integrated into the contract.
The project was first announced in April 2014, when NAT signed a memorandum of understanding with Avic.
The 68km LRT line comprises the first phase of the railway project. A succeeding phase entails the construction a 40km freight line.
The planned LRT will run between Adly Mansour, the main station of Cairo Metro Line 3 phase 4, and El-Robeiky, before branching northward to 10th of Ramadan City and southward to the New Capital City.
The freight line will connect the existing Cairo (Ain Shams) to Suez line with the Cairo-Zigzag line.
A study previously conducted by local Namat has indicated that the potential passenger volume for the LRT line by 2022 would be 242,600 people a day. This would translate into an annual income of about $60m against a projected operating and maintenance cost of about $30m a year. The surplus from the fare income would cover the required loan over about 26 years.
The maintenance and spare parts are predicted to cost $110m a year over a 10-year period, while the operation costs will be about $34m annually over a period of two years.
The trains, to be manufactured by Avic locally, will have a maximum speed of 120 km/h.
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