Turkey's Bayinder has been awarded a Rs 20,000 million ($500 million) contract for the construction of a new motorway from Islamabad to Peshawar. The six-lane highway will be 154 kilometres long, says the client, the National Highways Authority (NHA). Bayinder is expected to raise about 50 per cent of the total cost of the project, to be paid back by the government after completion. Construction is expected to take about three years and is scheduled to start within two months, the NHA says. Design work was carried out by the UK's Mott MacDonald and the local Engineering Consultants.

The NHA also says that it has prequalified about 30 companies for the construction of roads on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis. The NHA has identified eight roads and a rail bridge as BOT projects, with a total estimated investment requirement of over $4,000 million. Requests for proposals were to be issued to prequalified companies after 15 July. The companies are understood to be from Turkey, Italy, Iran, Malaysia, South Korea, the US and the UK. The deadline for submission of proposals is 16 September. The government is expected to finalise and approve details of an incentives package for private sector investment in roads in the near future (MEED 2:5:97).