CFR on track to receive array of financial support

The Government has announced that it will waive EUR 917 million of debt incurred by the national railway system, CFR, prior to the end of last year

April 2012 - From the Print Edition

The sum will be converted into shares, to be managed by the Ministry of Transportation, as sole shareholder of CFR. Meanwhile, the European Commission also announced last month that it had approved EUR 944 million of financing for two railway projects in Romania. The projects involve upgrades on the 41.1-km Frontiera-Curtici track section and the almost 75-km Simeria-Coslariu route. According to Alexandru Nazare, the transport minister, by the end of the first semester, the EC may approve another EUR 900 million of support for the Coslariu-Sighisoara line.
For the Frontiera-Curtici project, the EUR 248 million execution works contract has been signed with a consortium formed of Alstom Transport, Swietelsky Baugesellsachaft m.b. H, Astaldi S.p.A, Euro Construct Trading ´98 and Dafora, and will run for 27 months. The completion date for the works has been put at mid-2014, and they should start by March 15, according to the official data. For the Coslariu-Simeria section, the Italian constructor Impressa Pozzarotti & C S.p.A won the EUR 182.6 million contract, which has an estimated duration of 30 months. Meanwhile, VTB Capital plc, the investment banking division of Russia’s second largest state-owned bank, plans to invest several hundred million Euros in Balkan countries in the coming years, according to the bank’s CEO Atanas Bostandjiev. The lender is targeting projects in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Greece. In the first three countries, the bank is studying the privatization schedules for state-owned companies, such as CFR Marfa in Romania. Bostandjiev was appointed CEO, UK and international, of VTB Capital plc, the London-based investment arm of the VTB group, in May last year.