Possible New Bidding Process for Northern Highway

When changing the financing scheme to sovereign debt, BCIE suggested Guatemala to do its bidding process again.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The original public bid, won by its sole participant Solel Boneh FTN, stated that the winning company was responsible for obtaining financing for the project, which in this case was provided by the Central American Integration Bank (BCIE) to the company.

Now the Guatemalan Government has assumed the project's financing, through a loan with BCIE. This loan, backed by the State, enjoys better conditions than the one granted to the company, and would reduce the cost of the project by over $200 million.

As written by Lorena Alvarez in an article in ElPeriodico.com.gt, this opens the possibility for a new bidding process for the project, given that "as the loan is now backed by the State, it is now a project 'financed with State sovereign guarantee', and maintaining the current adjudication 'could imply a breach of the principles of competition and equality of contents in BCIE Policies'".

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