Finance & Funding

The Chilean government reached its goal of tendering infrastructure projects worth US$1.1 billion in 2015, its first year in power, but will likely miss its 2016 target of $1.5 billion by next month. This has been unofficially confirmed by the Ministry of Public Works, which has stated that it will not be possible to announce new tenders over the coming weeks. The projects with delays include the new Rancagua-Alhue and Santiago-Marga Marga-Quillota roads, as well as the creation of a dual carriageway on the

Colombia's National Road Institute (Invias) has reported that engineering firm Enrique Davila Lozano (EDL) is carrying out the second phase of feasibility studies and designs for construction of the Conexion Pacifico-Orinoquia road. The highway will link the Valle del Cauca department with the Orinoquia region. Consortium Consorcio SMA-TEC 4 is compiling the inventory during the second phase. Conexion Pacifico-Orinoquia will pass through Meta, Vichada, Guaviare, Casanare, Tolima, and Huila. The

The Haulotte Group reports that a healthy business environment has seen it generate good sales and profit levels. The firm generated consolidated sales of €134.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared with €92.7 million for the same period in 2014. This represented an increase of 45%. Consolidated sales for the whole of 2015 hit €445.3 million compared with €412.6 million in 2014, an increase of 8%. The group said it benefited from favourable exchange rates in 2015 and saw its performance driven b

The European Commission has approved a project worth almost 150 million for construction of an S19 dual carriageway stretching between Lublin and Rzeszow. The road is part of TEN-T, the Trans-European Transport Networks. Tent-T is a planned set of road, rail, air and water transport networks in the European Union. A decision to adopt TEN-T was made by the European Parliament and Council in 1996. TEN-T projects are mostly funded by national or state governments. Other funding sources include European C

The Russian government said it intends to spend nearly US$216 million building the Kirov western bypass. Construction of the 21.5km highway will start in 2017 at a bridge across the Vyatka River to the Kirov-Sovetsk-Yaransk interchange. Three interchanges and seven overpasses will also be built. The project will be carried out under the public-private partnership scheme.

The ring road project for Lima looks set to be hit by further delays. The construction seems likely to be delayed by a further 18 months due to the inability of Lima’s municipal authorities and the Peruvian Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) to settle key administrative agreements. Called the Anillo Vial Periferico, the new ring road is being built by the Cintra-JJC consortium.

Austria’s Infrastructure Ministry is setting out an ambitious programme of transport infrastructure development. Plans have been announced for €25 billion worth of infrastructure improvements over the next five years. This will include improvements to road and rail, as well as broadband services.

Britain’s only toll road, the motorway M6 Toll, is up for sale by its owners, a consortium of banks that hope to recover some of the €2.45 billion of debt. The 27 owners of M6 Toll, including Crédit Agricole, Commerzbank and Banco Espirito Santo, took over the 43km pay-as-you-go toll road from infrastructure group Macquarie in December 2013 after a debt restructuring. Midland Expressway Limited (MEL), part of Macquarie Atlas Roads, continues to operate the six-lane motorway around the English city of

Tunisia’s road network looks set to expand now that new funding has been secured. The Tunisian Assembly of the Representatives of the People has agreed two loans from the African Development Bank (ADB) worth a total of nearly US$208 million. These loans are to be repaid over 20 years and will help fund road infrastructure developments for the 2016-2020 period. The work will focus on upgrading classified roads. This includes renovating 719km of roads, building 23 bridges and constructing a 7.3km-long bypass

Uzbekistan will take out a US$405 million loan with the Asian Development Bank in the second half of this year for completion of a motorway from Central Asia to China. ADB will provide three loan in three tranches. Last autumn, Uzbekistan said it will target of 2,700km of new highways by 2019 at a cost of around $590 million. Around 2,280km will have a bituminous concrete surface and 418km will be a concrete surface. Uzbekistan has been setting out a major plan for road repairing, rebuilding and up