Egypt’s Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities and Transport Ministry could issue the tender for two monorail packages linking Cairo’s Nasr District to the New Cairo Capital and Giza to 6^th of October City before the last quarter of 2018, sources familiar with the project tell MEED.

Six consortiums have been prequalified to bid for the contracts. They are:

• Bombardier (Canada) / Orascom (local) / Arab Contractors (local)
• China Gezhouba Group (China) / China Railway Construction Corp (China) / Concord for Engineering & Construction (Egypt) / Samco (Egypt)
• China Railway (China) / Samcrete (local) / SNC Lavalin – Atkins (Canada) / Egyptian Railways Equipment (Semaf) (local)
• Chongqing International Construction / China Railway 11th Bureau Group (CRIIG) (China)
• Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (Italy) / Ansaldo (STS) – Hitachi (Italy/Japan) / Saipem (Italy)
• Scomi (Malaysia) / Arabtec (local) /Ministry of Military Production for Projects and Engineering (local) / Shaker Consultancy Group (local)

The Nasr District to New Cairo Capital monorail will extend 52 kilometres and the Giza to 6th of October City monorail 35km.

Both projects will be executed using a combined engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and financing model.

The consortiums are expected to provide technical, finance and commercial proposals once the tender is issued.

A consortium led by Canada’s Bombardier and another team led by China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) had previously submitted an offer for the Giza to 6th October City monorail system.

It now appears that the latest procurement procedure, understood to be mandated directly by the Egyptian prime minister’s office, nullified the previous bidding and negotiation process.

In 2017, Egyptian authorities signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bombardier to undertake a study to establish a monorail from Nasr City to New Cairo and the new administrative capital.