Four Turkish companies win huge highway project: Minister

Limak Holding and Cengiz Holding, which both have interests in many fields from energy to construction, together won a tender to build the Asian section of the road project, Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Minister Binali Yıldırım said in a televised interview.

Kolin Construction and Kalyon Group won a second tender to build the European section of the road, he said. 
Both sections were tendered under the build-operate-transfer model. All of the companies have recently won many tenders separately or together, including the 22 billion-euro third airport of Istanbul.

The 7 billion-lira investment on the 115-kilometer motorway is expected to span three years, Yıldırım said.

The General Directorate of Highways opened as part of the Third Bosphorus Bridge’s Northern Maramara Highway project in two separate packages upon a build-operate-transfer model. A total of eight consortiums submitted their bids for the European section and the Asian section in early May. 

Authorities had already announced that the offer promising the quickest construction period would win the tender.

The construction period is expected to last 36 months.

Yıldırım said both consortiums would exercise operational rights for around four years after construction is completed before transferring the rights to the General Directorate of Highways.