After 20 months of blocking the construction of the stretch of Struma highway between Blagoevgrad and Krupnik this week there is finally a stir. The Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works issued a building permit for the first six kilometers of the lot. And the first sod will be made on August 31 by the Agromach consortium. In a week the construction of the Struma extension will finally begin. In addition, next week will be renewed the tunnel "Zheleznitsa", which is on the Agromach section of Struma. At the moment, construction is progressing on the stretch to Sandanski, which is being built by a consortium of GBS. Contractor is AM Struma 3.1, the majority shareholder of which is the Blagoevgrad construction company Agromach. The consortium also includes their subsidiaries Roads Plovdiv and Roads Plovdiv Group.
Source: Capital (25.08.2017)

Bulgaria receives 28 bids for construction of 128 mln euro tunnel A total oF 28 bids were placed in the biggest road infrastructure procurement procedure for 2017, Bulgaria's longest tunnel on the Struma motorway. Most of Bulgaria's large construction companies are participating and despite a restriction to apply for only one of the three parts of the project, most companies bypass that. This emerged when the bids were opened on Tuesday. The procurement is worth 250 million leva VAT excluded. Of these 194 million leva will be for the tunnel. For the road stretches to the north and south of the tunnel 34 million leva and 22 million leva have been allocated respectively. Thirteen of the participants are vying to build the tunnel. Greece's Aktor, Italy's Astaldi and Turkey's Doush are participating on their own. The other participants are consortia which include leading Bulgarian companies: Glavbolgarstroy, Stanilov, Agromah, GP Group, Geostroy, Avtomagistrali Cherno more, HSS Group, ISA 2000. Turkey's Ergunler Yol Yapi and Italy's Todini are part of consortia with Bulgarian companies. This is the third attempt to select a contractor for the 2-km tunnel. The facility has to be completed by 2023, or else Bulgaria will lose the EU funding.
Source: Capital (29.11.2017)

Sofia South Ring Mall consolidates syndicated loan into debt to Postbank Sofia South Ring Mall company, owner of Sofia Ring Mall, said on Tuesday its debt on a syndicated loan with an initial value of 88 million levs ($53.3 million/45 million euro) has been consolidatd into debt owned solely by Bulgaria's Postbank. "Sofia South Ring Mall and Postbank announce that the bank has become the sole owner of the syndicated loan provided to the company in 2014," the operator of the mall said in a statement. According to Asen Yagodin, executive director at Postbank, the transaction provides competitive conditions on the credit as well as an extended repayment period and additional financing. "In addition to this key transaction, the year 2017 brought us a further increase in traffic by 12% compared to 26% growth in 2016," Dimitris Papoulis, CEO of Sofia South Ring Mall, said. Sofia Ring Mall is a 130 million euro ($163 million) investment project of Greek companies Fourlis Group, which trades and produces quality durable goods, and Danaos Group, which deals in shipping, information technology, construction, banking and financial services. The shopping centre located at the Sofia ring road spreads on a gross area of 105,000 sq m and has about 200 stores. Development of the mall started in September 2011 and was conducted by local construction company Glavbolgarstroy. Bulgaria's Postbank is a unit of Greece’s Eurobank EFG.
Source: Capital (06.12.2017)