Egypt’s Ministry of Housing, Utilities & Urban Communities and the Transport Ministry have extended the bids deadline to 31 January for the contract to design, build, finance and operate an electric high-speed passenger and freight railway that will link Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea coast and the new Alamein city on the Mediterranean coast.

The previous tender closing date is 17 December.

Nine groups are expected to bid for the contract. They include:

• Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (Italy) / Ansaldo (STS) & Hitachi (Italy/Japan) / Saipem (Italy)
• Vinci / Colas Rail / Alstom / Bouygues Travaux / SNCF (all from France)
• Avic(China) / China Railway Group Engineering Corp (China) / Siemens (Germany) / Deutsche Bahn (Germany) / Orascom (local) / Arab Contractors (local)
• Power China (China) / El-Sewedy Electric (local)
• Mathia / Talgo (Spain) / Indra (Spain) / Inabensa (Spain)
• China Gezhouba Group (China) / China Railway Construction (China) / Samco National Construction (local)
• Hyundai Rotem (South Korea) / Eiffage (France) / Hassan Allam Sons (local) / Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) (Lebanon)
• China Civil Engineering Construction (CCEC) / China Railway 14th Bureau Group / China Railway Fifth Survey and Design Institute Group (CR5DI) (China)
• Norinco / China Real Estate Information Corporation (CRIC) / China Railway Design Corporation (CRDC) (China)

A consortium of US-based Aecom and French consultancy Systra prepared the terms of reference for the engineering, procurement, construction and finance (EPC+F) contract.

The proposed 534-kilometre high-speed rail comprises the first phase of Egypt’s plan to build 2,000km of high-speed rail links to complement its existing mainline network.

A second 1,500km high-speed railway linking Sokhna and Marsa Alam on the western shore of the Red Sea is also planned. No specific timeline has yet been provided for the second line.

Egypt received bids in November for the contract to build and finance two monorail systems in the greater Cairo area.

The teams that submitted a bid are:

• Bombardier (Canada) / Orascom (local) / Arab Contractors (local)
• China Railway (China) / Samcrete (local) / SNC Lavalin – Atkins (Canada) / Egyptian Railways Equipment (Semaf) (local)
• 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 be 52km, while the Giza to 6 October City monorail will be 35km.