PRESIDENT Ivan Gašparovič signed into law the revision of the state debt and state guarantees law. According to the revised law, the government can now provide guarantees for the construction of the D1 highway in the form of a public-private partnership, the SITA newswire reported.
As of October 2009, the legislation will enable the state to grant a guarantee for loans issued by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to a PPP concessionaire to finance construction projects.
EIB will lend €1 billion to the consortium in charge of constructing the D1 highway within the first package of PPP projects in Slovakia.
As the concessionaire is obliged to secure a guarantee for the loan of up to €800 million and because the current financial climate is making it impossible for commercial banks to offer such guarantees, the state guarantee appeared to be the only possible solution to enable the closure of the project.
The contract for the first PPP package for the D1 was signed by the Transport Ministry and Slovenské Diaľnice on April 15. The company was founded by an international consortium led by French company Bouygues Travaux Publiscs SA. The consortium, which made a bid amounting to €3.3 billion, also includes Slovak companies Doprastav Bratislava and Váhostav-SK Žilina.
