TWENTY construction companies are bidding for the P6.27-billion railway project, the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) announced Monday.

The 20 interested firms are Sumitomo Corp., Marubeni Corp., Hanjin Heavy Industries, Siemens Inc., DMCI-EEI First Balfour Consortium, FF Cruz & Co., Leighton Contractors, Foundation Specialist Inc., Cavite Ideal Int’l Construction & Development Corp., Systra Phils. Inc., BES Engineering Corp., Asset Builders Corp., R-II Builders Inc., Pacific Concrete Products Inc., Romago Inc., Telefonicka Inck., Autre Porte Global Technique Inc., Meralco Industrial Engineering Services Corp., Genials Trading & Contracting Co. Inc., and China State (Phils.) Construction Engineering Corp.

Sumitomo Corp. undertook the capacity expansion project of LRT Line 1, while Marubeni was the main contractor for the LRT Line 2 construction.

The winning bidder will undertake the civil works as well as the electro-mechanical components for the railway project, which is envisioned to connect the LRT and the Metro Rail Transit railways.

LRTA administrator Mel Robles said this is the first time for any government bidding process with a high turnout of bidders.

“This is a sign of confidence with the LRTA.  There are no any other government offices which received such huge response from bidders,” Robles said.

A prebid conference will be held today. The LRTA has invited members of the civil society like representatives from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Philippine Contractors Association, Transparency International, Commission on Audit and Office of the Ombudsman to observe the process. 

The LRT-MRT interconnection is a 7.71-kilometer elevated line from Monumento station of LRT Line 1 to North Avenue of MRT 3, with two new intermediate stations which are Balintawak and Roosevelt and a terminal station at Line 1 North Avenue station, all equipped with escalators and elevators.

Robles said with the project, the average daily ridership is set to increase by 66.16 percent, or a total of 535,558 passengers, from the current average of 322,309 passengers.

Funding of the project will be taken from the debt-paper sale of state-owned National Development Co., amounting to P4.6 billion. The remaining P1.67 billion will be obtained through a General Appropriations Act enacted by Congress.

In November last year, President Arroyo directed Transportation   Secretary Leandro Mendoza and Robles to proceed with the construction of the LRT-MRT loop after thorough evaluation of several construction options.

Construction of the loop will start early next year and is expected to be operational by 2010.

FROM now on, projects to be funded by Chinese official development assistance (ODA) will not move forward until all stakeholders have been consulted on them.

THE Philippines scored low and was ranked at 65th place in the first global Logistics Performance Index (LPI) released in a new study commissioned by the World Bank (WB).

THE so-called sunshine industry, according to one of its leaders, will continue to shine in the future.

TWENTY construction companies are bidding for the P6.27-billion railway project, the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) announced Monday.

EVEN AS the country keeps its doors open to the possible tapping of nuclear-energy sources and technical assistance offered by neighboring Asean countries on the development of nuclear energy in the Philippines, the government would still rather develop its renewable-energy sources before it taps the use of nuclear-energy sources, Energy Secretary Angelo T. Reyes said Monday.

CLARK, Pampanga—Foreign and local flight students are coming in droves while flight-training schools are sprouting everywhere just like nursing schools.