Four offers expected for Athens metro project
Four bidders are expected to show interest in Greece’s tender to build a 1.45-billion-euro project to expand the Athens metro, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. Greece’s GEK Terna will bid as part of a joint venture with France’s Vinci and Siemens, a spokesman for GEK Terna said. Greece’s Aktor with Italy’s AnsaldoBreda, J&P Avax with Italy’s Ghella and France’s Alstom and Mytilineos with Spain’s FCC were also expected to bid, the source with knowledge of the matter said. J&P Avax did not respond to a request for comment and Mytilineos declined to comment. Aktor was not immediately available for comment. Stateowned Attiko Metro has pushed back the deadline for initial expressions of interest to build the 13-kilometer expansion three times since June after requests by potential bidders. The latest deadline is August 10. Attiko Metro has said it will complete a short list of potential contractors by the end of the year. Short-listed investors will then have to submit technical and financial bids for the project, which will be co-financed by European funds and loans by the European Investment Bank. Construction is expected to begin in 2019 and will be completed within eight years. Attiko Metro will launch a separate tender in September for contractors to carry out preparatory works before construction of the new metro line starts, its managing director Theodoros Papadopoulos told Reuters. Papadopoulos said that works will include archaeological research and moving part of public utility networks and these were expected to start early next year.
Thessaloniki hotels recorded a slight increase of 3.5 percent in the number of foreign guests over the first half of the year compared to a year earlier, according to the local hoteliers’ association. Overnight stays by guests from abroad numbered 1.08 million, but 35,596 of them concerned migrants from Iraq and Syria. terday in a sale of six-month treasury bills, according to an announcement by the Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA). The treasury bills were priced to yield 2.5 percent, down from the previous auction carried out in July, when the interest rate stood at 2.78 percent. Shut out of international markets since 2010, Greece runs a monthly treasury bill auction to cover maturing debts and meet its financing needs. On July 25, the debtladen country made its first test return to bond markets in three years. Greece raised 3 billion euros at that auction, selling five-year state bonds at a 4.625 percent interest rate, down from the 4.95 percent interest rate it had secured in 2014. Greece is expected to fully return to the markets in 2018 when the country’s third bailout program since 2010 comes to an end.