Finance & Funding

The El Salvador Government has failed to finish its planned programme of investments in public infrastructure projects. The country has implemented just 66% of the budget it had previously allotted for infrastructure work during 2015. In all the planned budget accounted for US$682 million. The country has so far spent $206.2 million of the $1.05 billion it has targeted for its 2016 infrastructure budget.

Vienna-based Strabag reported output volume of nearly €2,257 million in the first quarter of 2016 financial year, a decline of 9%. However, Q1 EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) improved by 13% to €-57.71 million. The order backlog also decreased on the year, coming to rest at €13,976.62 million on 31 March 2016 – an 8% decline versus the first quarter of 2015. The number of employees fell by 3% to 68,808. This reduction took place almost entirely among blue-col

Nearly a third of Sri Lanka’s new US$11.5 billion transport master plan will be spent on road development in and around the capital Colombo. The plan, unveiled by the Western Region Megapolis Planning Project (WRMPP) – covers the next 20 years. Work will start on the first projects withinsix month, according to a report by the Daily Mirror newspaper. The other two-thirds will be spent on a light rail transit system, railway electrification, bus modernisation and inland waterways. The project is to

France’s overseas development agency, Agence Française de Dévelopement, has earmarked US$200 million for the planned Kampala-Jinja Expressway in Uganda. Construction is expected to start next year on the 77km four-to-six lane toll road, a public-private partnership. The expressway will start at Nakawa, a neighbourhood of the capital city Kampala, and end at the New Jinja Bridge, now under construction in the town of Njeru. The New Jinja Bridge, also referred to as the Second Nile Bridge or the New

Construction of the Escenica Alterna tunnel in the Mexican resort port city of Acapulco is expected to be finished by June 2017. Work started on the 3.1km tunnel in 2013 with completion originally scheduled for October 2015. But financial problems delayed the US$200 million project which is now around three-quarters complete. Work by the contractor IDEAL - part of conglomerate Grupo Carso - includes construction of an elevated road connecting tunnel with Metlapil motorway.

The Danish government has awarded €4.4 billion worth of contracts for the Fehmarn Tunnel that will link Germany and Denmark, according to Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. An international consortium that includes German Wayss und Freytag Ingenieurbau, Max Bögl Stiftung and Netherlands-based BAM picked up the work. Contracts include the excavation and construction of underground tunnels, manufacture of internal tunnel elements and the entry and exit ramps. Work is expected to star

Taiwan’s National Expressway Engineering Bureau said it would terminate its contract with Kuo Teng Construction company because of issues over the construction schedule of Kinmen Bridge. Work on the bridge connecting the main island of Greater Kinmen and Lieyu, also known as Little Kinmen, began in 2013 after it had been a campaign promise in five presidential elections. The bureau recently said that work on the bridge was nearly 19% behind schedule and reportedly gave the company 30 days to bring the pro

Eight road repair projects are among 23 contracts that the Angolan government has awarded to Chinese infrastructure companies under a credit line from the government in Beijing. The contracts - the other deals are for water infrastructure work - have a total worth of US$550 million, according to Angolan media. All the projects are in the provinces of Bié, Bengo, Namibe, Huambo, Kwanza Sul, Kwanza Norte, Uige and Malanje. One of the contracts was awarded to China Railway 20 Bureau Group to repair the C

The president of Panama, Juan Carlos Varela, has given the green light to T.Y Lin International to start project managing construction of a fourth bridge over the Panama Canal. The US-based infrastructure engineering company won an international tender for the work likely to cost around US$17 million, according to local media. Pre-qualification has started for companies interested in participating on the billion-dollar project. The new bridge is one of three infrastructure projects within a five-ye