The Ministry of Transports, Constructions and Tourism is negotiating the loan contract with the syndicate comprising Raiffeisen Bank Austria and Bear Stearns (US) for the partial funding of the deal concluded by the Romanian State and US-based Bechtel. The construction works on the Brasov-Bors motorway, worth more than 2.5 billion euros at the time the contract was signed will see a 469 million-euro funding from the two banks, to be used in the first two contractual years.
“The Ministry began talks with the syndicate comprising Raiffeisen Bank and American investment bank Bear Stearns last week, with the first payments scheduled to be made this month. The funding raised from these banks for this year’s works will be worth approximately 250 million euros,” Sorin Ovidiu Bota, state secretary within the Ministry of Transports, Constructions and Tourism told Ziarul Financiar.
US Eximbank will provide guarantees for 152 million euros out of the total 469 million-euro funding, with the rest coming in form of a commercial credit granted for ten years with a four-year grace period. The Finance Ministry in its turn is to issue guarantees for both the funding secured by Eximbank and for the funding contracted at the Romanian market risk, which means higher interests compared to the American market.
In 2004, US Eximbank will guarantee 144 million euros out of the total 250 million euros allocated for this year. The Ministry of Transports, Constructions and Tourism also has spending rights for about 82 million euros for this year, which it may or may not exert depending on how the works go. These are actually amounts drawn from foreign credits and not “taken” from any ministry’s budget for that matter, Bota explains. According to the ministry official, this is how some space “was cleared” for the Bechtel project, which had not been included in the 2004 budget, considering the signing took place after the endorsement of the budgets.
Bechtel signed the contract for designing and building the Brasov-Bors motorway in December 2003. The contract was awarded without a tender held first, which caused the European Union to voice dissatisfaction. The motorway will be completed by 2012. adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro