Istanbul has cancelled an open tender for the construction of the third Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul after none of the 18 participating companies submitted a bid, Turkish news reported on Tuesday.
A key tender that included the building of a third bridge over Istanbul’s Bosphorus fizzled out yesterday, as none of the domestic and international companies were able to produce a concrete bid. As the deadline to place a bid expired at 2 p.m., the episode became a stark indicator of the unfavorable global and domestic climate for investment.
The potential bidders included Japan’s Mitsubishi, Italy’s Astaldi, Russia’s Moskovskiy Metrostroy, Austria’s Stradag and Spain’s FCC – all from countries that have been hit hard by the global financial crisis and the ensuing eurozone debt crisis.
“Under the current conditions, it is not possible to finance such a big project,” an executive from one of the potential bidders said, according to a Reuters report.
Turkish Minister Yıldırım said he acknowledged the “economic slowdown” in Europe. “But there is no crisis, or risk of a crisis, in Turkey.”
The new bridge, which had been slated to cost in the region of six billion dollars, was designed to enable road and rail traffic from Europe to pass straight to the Turkish Anatolian mainland without passing through the country’s main city, Istanbul.
