One Bid Received For
Highway to San Ramón
By Fabián Borges
fborges@ticotimes.net

Only one consortium submitted the technical and economic proposals required to participate in the public works concession bidding process to decide what companies will expand and improve a 68-kilometer stretch of the Inter-American Highway that connects the Pacific-slope town of San Ramón to San José, running past the Juan Santamaría International Airport near Alajuela.

The final deadline to submit bids for the proposed 25-year, $170-million public highway concession expired at 2 p.m. yesterday. By that time, only one group - a consortium of Spanish firms FCC and Sacyr, Portuguese firm Soaraes Da Costa and Costa Rican firm M&S - had submitted a formal proposal.

"We are on the verge of finalizing our second road concession (the first is the road connecting San José to the Pacific shipping port of Caldera)," said Public Works and Transport Minister Javier Chaves. "This marks a significant change in the way public works projects are developed in Costa Rica. Public works concessions are a real option. We are innovating; we are learning."

The concession will be divided into three parts. The General Cañas Highway will be expanded from four to six lanes from La Sabana Park in western San José to the Juan Santamaría airport.

Next, the road that links the airport to Manolo's - the crossroads between La Garita de Alajuela and the main highway to the Pacific - will be expanded from two to four lanes. The project also includes the construction of a road connecting the western San José suburb of Santa Ana to the highway via Río Segundo de Alajuela.

Finally, the Bernardo Soto Highway, the section of the Inter-American Highway that passes by the towns of Grecia, Naranjo, Palmares and San Ramón, will be improved.

"This project is part of a larger effort to make the country more competitive," Chaves said. "It's up to businessmen to be competitive in their factories. It's up to us, the government, to make sure the country is competitive between its factories and its ports."

In December, the National Concessions Council announced three main groups were interested in the project -- the consortium led by FCC and Sacyr; Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin, one of the firms in charge of the concession to build and operate the highway connecting San José to the Pacific port of Caldera, and another consortium composed of French firms Bouygues and Buix Public.

To accommodate these firms' request for more time, the final deadline for submitting bids was delayed four times during the past six months, according to Rocío Aguilar, Technical Secretary of the Concessions Council.

Chaves denied that the reception of only one offer was a sign investors have doubts about the credibility of public works concession projects in Costa Rica.

"We have made important efforts in marketing our projects to investors," he said. "However, given the nature and size of these types of projects, the number of companies in a position to issue bids is limited. Participants need to be large enough to be given access to large sources of financing. Just as an example, for this contract we required companies with at least $150 million in assets."

The Concessions Council has 90 days to evaluate the technical and economic proposals. If everything is in order, the concession will be adjudicated and made public. After that, the company will have 90 days to establish a Costa Rican company subject to the country's laws to be legally responsible for the project. The final contract would then be signed by that company and sent to the Comptroller General's Office for approval.

If the contract is approved, the consortium will have up to one year to find financing for the project and begin construction. Both the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Central American Economic Integration Bank (BCIE) have expressed interest in financing the project once a concessionaire is chosen.