Company briefs - 2011-08-25

A procurement tender for supplying new electric and diesel trains has been concluded, and its only bidder - Spanish company Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A. (CAF) - has won the competition, reports Nozare.lv. Pasazieru Vilciens’ (PV) member of the board and manager of the Procurement Department, Martins Jirgens, said that on Aug. 23, PV and CAF will start negotiations of the contract. PV is the organizer of the tender. The plan is to sign it within one month’s time. PV plans to buy 34 new electric trains and seven diesel trains altogether by 2015. On March 9, the European Commission approved the EU Cohesion Fund’s (CF) major road sector project on Riga suburban railway passenger system modernization and renewal of diesel rolling stock to the extent of 144 million lats (205.7 million euros). The CF financing comprises 100 million lats of the total.

Estonian state-owned railway operator Eesti Raudtee’s subsidiary, ERV Cargo, concluded on Aug. 18 a contract with Chinese business consortium CCOEC/BRE for buying 16 new maneuvring locomotives DF7G-E, reports National Broadcasting. The contract was signed by EVR Cargo board member Oskar Kalmus and China National Corporation for Overseas Economic Cooperation (CCOEC) president Ma Zhiwu. The value of the transaction is 30.2 million euros. The first of the engines to be bought has to reach Estonia for type testing in the first half of next year. The rest will be supplied in the second quarter of 2013. Eesti Raudtee said that the new locomotives have been bought because the current ones, of Czech origin, were made in the 1960s.