MINSK, 3 December (BelTA) – The Belarusian Transport and Communications Ministry expects to sign the agreement with a private partner on reconstructing the M10 motorway on public private partnership terms in 2020, BelTA learned from Belarusian Transport and Communications Minister Aleksei Avramenko on 3 December.
The official said: “Next year we are supposed to be able to sign the agreement on public private partnership [with a private partner] and get down to implementing the project.”
The Transport and Communications Ministry is now perusing applications submitted by private partners – eight of them. The number includes organizations from China, Turkey, South Korea, and Russia.
“We need to make a short list of bidders. I think we will finish the work by the end of December. The five bidders will be invited to participate in a tender to implement the public private partnership project on reconstructing the M10 motorway with assistance of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,” Aleksei Avramenko added.
The pilot project to be implemented on public private partnership terms provides for reconstructing a section of the M10 motorway: the Russian Federation border (Selishche) – Gomel – Kobrin. The Transport and Communications Ministry is the state partner in the project. The private partner will be responsible for designing, reconstruction, financing, and maintenance of five sections of the M10 motorway with the total length of 85.25km. The capital investment is estimated at €185.8 million. Reconstruction is supposed to begin in Q4 2020. The project provides for increasing the number of traffic lanes from two to four, for increasing the load per axle from 10 tonnes to 11.5 tonnes. Speed limit for cars will be raised from 90kmph to 120kmph, for trucks – from 70kmph to 100kmph.
