Construction of the R1 dual carriageway section through private sources could start after bank houses prepare the project's financing. The Director General of the National Highway Company (NDS) and Government Plenipotentiary for Highways Igor Choma anticipates that banks would ensure funding within two weeks of the Cabinet's signing of the second annex to the R1 concession agreement, namely by late July, newswire SITA wrote.
Choma assumes that the construction will start afterwards. The NDS prepared everything for the construction to start. It deforested the section, which has been marked and prepared for the concessionaire to immediately commence construction works. Everything else depends on the concessionaire, as the time for R1 construction is lapsing, according to authorities.
At its special session held on July 17, the Slovak Cabinet approved the second annex to the concession agreement signed with the company Granvia, governing the construction and operation of four sections of the R1 dual carriageway between Nitra and Tekovské Nemce, including the northern bypass of Banská Bystrica, as suggested by Slovakia’s Transport Minister Ľubomír Vážny, SITA wrote.
Granvia was established by the French-Dutch consortium Vinci Concessions S.A.- ABN Amro Highway B.V. The approved annex spells out an increase in the initial price from €1.5 billion to €1.8 billion because of difficult conditions on the financial market, caused by the economic crisis. The annual fee paid by the state to the concessionaire after R1 completion will go up from €109.4 million to €127.4 million. The agreed-upon terms governing the 30-year concession enable decreasing fees if cost of financing on financial
markets drops. The state and bank houses agreed that no guarantees demanded
initially by banks would be provided.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) definitively approved that it would support the implementation of the second PPP package with a €250 million loan for construction of the R1 dual carriageway between Nitra and Tekovské Nemce. The EBRD is to finance approximately 27 percent of construction works, according to SITA.
