Finance & Funding

The Brazilian Government is considering increasing the number of projects being privatised in a bid to boost investment in the country. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff has suggested increasing the number of federal roads included in the privatisation programme from four to 11. The economic team has presented 20 new road stretches to be considered for inclusion in the programme. These routes will be studied in order to determine which will generate the most interest from the private sector, with six or se

UK construction equipment manufacturer JCB reports lower sales than in the previous financial year. Sales turnover slid to €3.46 billion (£2.51 billion) compared with the €3.69 billion (£2.68 billion) achieved in the previous year. The firm recorded machine sales of 64,028 units, compared with 66,227 in 2013. Overall JCB says that despite improvements in some Western markets, falls in other sales territories hit overall business. The company also faced a one off restructuring cost of €15.14 million (£11 mil

The Australian Government is only allocating central funding to urban road projects in its Budget 2015. Major projects that will receive federal funding are the WestConnex motorways, urban roads around Badgerys Creek and the widening of the Pacific Highway. The Federal Government will provide US$1.2 billion (A$1.5 billion) in grant funding as well as an additional $1.6 billion (A$2 billion) loan for the WestConnex project. Meanwhile the NorthConnex project under the Pennant Hills Road in Sydney will receive

Philippines-based Metro Pacific Tollways is mulling offers to invest US$600 million in a project in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Metro Pacific Tollways president Ramoncito Fernandez said that the investment would be made through the company’s CII Bridges and Roads Investment Joint Stock Co. (CII B&R). “We are being offered new projects in Vietnam. We are now are evaluating a new project that will connect Ho Chi Minh to outskirts,” said Fernandez, without naming the project. Early this year, Metro Pacific

The Colombian government has awarded the contract for construction of the Cesar-Guajira road to Construcciones El Condor, sole bidder for the work. The deal is a US$165 million public-private partnership (PPP) aiming to improve connectivity with the country’s Caribbean coastal departments. The 350km road will connect San Roque with Cuestecita, take four years to build and employ around 1,400 workers. Colombian Vice President, German Vargas Lleras, said five projects have been approved under the PPP sc

A court in the Algerian capital Algiers has sentenced two men to 10 years in jail for their part in a money laundering scheme relating to construction of the East West Motorway.

Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo has vowed to complete the Trans-Papua Highway by 2019, two years later than previously scheduled. Work on the seven-year old project has been dogged by difficulties, including transporting construction equipment and material around the mountainous province on the island of New Guinea, the Jakarta Post newspaper reported The Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing said it will spend around $4.36 billion this year on infrastructure nationally. This will include reha

In China's Gansu province, the city of Lanzhou has earmarked US$10.92 billion in the next six years. The rural road network of Lanzhou will be expanded from 6,616km to 9,013km, while highways will be expanded from 354km to 614km. Lanzhou will also boost its general national and provincial roads from 759km to 1,627km. From 2015 to 2020, the province of Gansu plans to invest $80.58 billion in road construction over the next six years.

China Roads and Bridges Corporation has started work on Montengro’s first motorway that will eventually connect Bar (Tiva) on the Adriatic coast with Boljare on the border with Serbia. The first part of the 170km motorway will be a 49km stretch for which China's Exim Bank reportedly paid €94.30 million as the first installment for its construction. Also in the region, Bosnia Herzogovina is planning a new 110km highway to link its Adriatic coast to that further south in Montenegro.