Géopolitiques de la Bulgarie

07 novembre 2007

PM Stanishev: Development and future of Bulgarian Marine Fleet is no priority

7 November 2007 | 13:16 | FOCUS News Agency

Varna. The development and future of the Bulgarian Marine Fleet is a priority of the government, Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev announced in Varna port upon releasing water on the Pirin ship, a journalist of Radio FOCUS – Varna reported. Stanishev noted this is the third order of the Bulgarian Marine Fleet that has been implemented by Buliyard company. Bulgarian Minister of Transport Petar Mutafchiev noted that the profit of the shipping company for the past nine months exceeds that of last year by 62%. Pirin is the third ship built by the agreement between Buliyard and the BMF.

24 octobre 2007

Low-cost carriers

Low-cost carriers that operate on the Bulgarian market registered a 50 per cent increase in the number of passengers in the first nine months of 2007, compared to the same period of 2006.

This strongly surpassed the growth marked by traditional flight operators, which was only 11 per cent, Wizz Air�s chief commercial officer John Stevenson said on October 10, as quoted by the web site investor.bg.

The market share of low-cost airlines could reach 20 per cent in Bulgaria by the end of 2007, according to estimates made earlier this year. Low-cost air carriers held only seven or eight per cent of the aviation market in the country at the end of 2006.Stevenson�s forecast, was that the number of passengers his company would transport in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where Wizz Air operates, would reach 4.3 million for the entire 2007, after reaching just 2.9 million in 2006.

Wizz Air announced earlier this year it would start flying from Sofia to the German city of Dortmund on October 29 2007.

They said the flights would take place twice a week and would increase to three times per week around Christmas 2007.

The initial price offered is 24.99 euro, airport taxes included. Booking is already possible through the website of the company.Wizz Air said on its web site on October 10 that it had signed a contract with Airbus for an additional order of fifty A320 aircraft and 25 options increasing its total orders to 107 aircrafts. The new order followed Wizz Air�s existing A320 order, addressed its capacity requirements until 2014 and is the largest Airbus fleet order in the CEE region.

Stevenson said in Sofia he hoped that the purchase of new aircrafts would not make fares more expensive, as with the bigger jets they would be buying, Wizz Air would have the opportunity to reduce the flight cost per passenger.

http://mp3flux.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/bulgarian-customers-on-low-tariff-carriers-50-up/

16 septembre 2007

Bulgaria's Attempts to Become Transport Centre of SE Europe

The recent signing of major contracts for railway infrastructure upgrade programmes is a key step in Bulgaria's plans to be a transport hub for Southeastern Europe. The combination of the experience of private European companies and EU funds will help the country overhaul its outdated freight system and allow it to maximise its international links with neighbouring countries.

On September 5 the transport ministry struck a 162.5m euro deal with Astaldi, in which the Italian company will construct rail and electricity infrastructure on a 114km stretch between Plovdiv and Svilengrad, which is near the Greek and Turkish borders.

In a separate deal, Austrian firm Thales Rail Signalling and French firm Alcatel Lucent will provide signalling and telecommunications infrastructure to the same stretch of rail in a contract worth 35.6m euros. When the project is completed, in an estimated 39 months, the line will be capable of taking trains travelling at 160km per hour.

Anton Ginev, general director of the National Railway Infrastructure Company (NRIC), told OBG that work on the line was "essential" to enhance the country's transportation system and would provide important service efficiency and reliability improvements by converting a diesel single-track part of the network to electrified service for passengers and freight.

The NRIC is involved in several initiatives to upgrade the nation's rail infrastructure to help improve capacity, international linkages and bring the rail network up to par with EU standards for freight and passenger rail transport. A consortium lead by Spanish firm Iberinsa has signed a 3.35m-euro contract to provide technical support for the modernisation of the route from Vidin, on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria, to Sofia.

Finalised geographical surveys are expected for the Danube Bridge II that links Vidin to the Romanian town of Calafat in September. The bridge will provide road and rail connections between Bulgaria and Romania at a cost of 236m euros. Other stretches to receive attention include the lines between Plovdiv and Burgas, Mezdra and Gorna Oryahovitsa and Sofia and Plovdiv.

The Bulgarian rail network is long due an overhaul. In the past decade only 790km of the country's 4316km of primary track has been upgraded and much of the power generation and signalling infrastructure is obsolete, meaning that trains are limited to speeds of 100km per hour on most lines. Usage of the country's rail network has dropped markedly since the early 1990s. In 1990 63.25m tonnes of freight was carried by rail. By 2006 this figure was 21.18m, up 900,000 tonnes on the previous year's figure.

The Plovdiv - Svilengrad overhaul is expected to cost 340m euros, of which only 37m euros will come from the state coffers, 150m euros in the form of a loan from the European Investment Bank and the remaining 153m euros from the EU's Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession programme, which focuses on infrastructure. In addition, the NRIC is looking to sell non-crucial assets in order to raise revenues. In the first week of September, the Plovdiv and Pomorie stations were sold off for 7m euros and 11m euros respectively.

Ginev said the sale of Pomorie station, which the NRIC owned, would provide resources for debt liquidation of the company. He said he expected "other unprofitable stations and railway infrastructure properties" would be sold that by the end of the year, providing an additional $44m.

Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ), the national carrier, announced in September that it would place a 120m euro, 10-year private bond issue aimed at attracting Bulgarian and foreign investors.

"A proportion of the money will go towards covering existing debts but the main focus is the overhaul of 1200 freight wagons in the BDZ fleet," Christina Belevelva, public relations manager for BDZ, told OBG. "Since last year we have seen strong growth in demand for rail freight services from Bulgarian businesses and the current fleet is outdated and insufficient."

Competitors will increasingly meet this rise in demand. As of the first of this year, the Bulgarian freight sector has been open to private competition and in August the first private operator, Bulmarket, announced it had purchased five Siemens electric locomotives from Danish State Railways. The liberalisation of passenger operations to private carriers is planned for 2010.

Bulgaria is looking to take advantage of its position as the eastern-most point of the EU to become a vital link for freight heading between Western and Central Europe and Asia. While much attention has focused on the country's attempts to upgrade its road connections, the existence of a multi-nodal transport system is crucial to the realisation of this goal. Construction of a 25.9m euro intermodal freight terminal in Sofia bringing together road, rail and air transport is expected to begin before the end of the year.

There are plans for similar logistics centres in Plovdiv, Ruse and the port of Burgas. In a country where 700 cars are registered by authorities every day and news of severe traffic accidents are rarely out of the headlines, the development of a strong rail network can take the strain from the increasingly congested road network.

Ginev told OBG that Bulgaria is the only European country where five of the ten Trans-European Transport Corridors (Corridors IV, VII, VIII, IX and X) pass. With that in mind, the country's potential to become a major transport leader in Southeast Europe and a future EU transportation hub can be assumed to be "very high."

http://international.ibox.bg/news/id_1158421225

10 septembre 2007

Times: Taking the train in Bulgaria

10 September 2007 | 13:09 | FOCUS News Agency

London. In a story, published on the online edition of Times, Alan Heywood gives answer to the question 'Is it possible to travel to Bulgaria, and back by train? I cannot seem to get further than Italy!', asked by Tony Elliott, by email Times Online rail expert Alan Heywood responds: Yes, I can understand that you would come unstuck if you tried to go to Bulgaria via Italy. I grant you it looks easy on a map but, in practice, you would either need to take a ferry from Italy to Greece and then head north from there or take a train via Trieste into Slovenia and then travel through Croatia and Serbia. This was, of course, a classic route in days gone by - the Venice Simplon Orient Express went that way - but the break up of Yugoslavia into separate countries and therefore railway administrations has made it much more difficult. Each country publishes its own timetable and fare tables and, whilst there are some international trains, none have the standing or convenience of those wonderful trains of old. The recommended route nowadays is Eurostar from London Waterloo (St. Pancras from November 14 2007) to Paris Nord, then overnight sleeper from Paris Est (one stop from Nord on the Metro) to Munich, a day train from Munich to Budapest and then another sleeper to Sofia. Source: Times

09 septembre 2007

Bulgaria launches railway projects worth 200 million euro

Transport Ministry signed three infrastructural contracts together worth more than 200 million euro, which will help the development of the state railways.

The first contract was for the reconstruction and electrification of the railway connecting Plovdiv and Svilengrad. The Italian company Astaldi would execute the project worth nearly 163 million euro, a Transport Ministry press release said. The reconstruction has to be ready in 39 months.

The second project was for signalisation and telecommunications for the whole Plovdiv-Svilengrad railway track and was assigned to the Austrian Thales Rail Signalling and Alkatel-Lucent. The project was worth 35.56 million euro and would have to be completed by March 31 2008.

A consortium with Spanish Iberinsa as leading partner would take up the technical support for the modernisation of the Vidin-Sofia rail way. This project was worth 3.35 million euro and would have to be finished in 24 months.

According to Transport Minister Petar Moutafchiev, the three projects will help Bulgaria’s railways integrate into the European railway system and will make local railways more competitive and safe.

http://en.journey.bg/news/?news=3359

05 septembre 2007

Minister Petar Mutafchiev checks recycled carriages to be used by state-owned BDZ

5 September 2007 | 16:39 | FOCUS News Agency

Sofia. Bulgarian Transport Minister Petar Mutafchiev has personally checked the quality of recycled carriages at Sofia Railway Station. The carriages have been bought from Germany, a journalist of FOCUS News Agency reported. The minister traveled by train to Bulgaria’s Karlovo in a recycled carriage. Beforehand the minister along with state-owned railway operator BDZ's General Director Oleg Petkov and Anton Dinev, Executive Director of the National Railway Infrastructure Company took a look around the trains.

04 septembre 2007

BDZ put into operation new Simens locomotive

4 September 2007 | 10:00 | FOCUS News Agency

Sofia. Bulgarian State Railways EAD (BDZ) put into operation on the railway network new engine “Simens” ES64U2 series. The price of a new locomotive from ES64U2 series is about EUR 5,000,000 the company informed. The locomotive was delivered on September 1. It is the newest constriction of universal four axes locomotive that is making by Simens.

23 août 2007

Chimimport and Multigroup remnants bidding for the maritime fleet NMB

23 August 2007 | 00:14 | FOCUS News Agency

Sofia. The initial stage in the privatisation procedure for a 70% stake in Bulgaria's national maritime fleet NMB has sparked considerable interest on the part of potential buyers, as owner Chimimport has the greatest chance for snatching up the deal. The list of 23 candidates that have bought the tender documents includes India's Essar Shipping&Logistics Limited, Greek Athenian Sea Carriers Ltd. and Chartworld Shipping Corporation, Italy's Sider Navi S.p.A., Czech Cechofracht a.s., France's CMA-CGM S.A. as well as local players like Varna-based business conglomerate TIM, the former Multigroup corporation and businessman Hristo Kovachki. The candidates wishing to advance in the procedure should certify before the Privatisation Agency their compliance with the prequalification criteria by September 10. The procedure is open to companies that had time-chartered bulk or/and general cargo vessels with a tonnage of 1.3 mln DWT in each of the past 3 years. They will have to produce a letter of intent for financing from a commercial bank rated at least A3 by Moody's that has loan-financed the purchase, construction or repair of sea vessels to the total amount of 3 bln euro. The procedure is also open to consortia between a strategic investor and other parties wherein the strategic investor controls 70% of the partnership. The non-binding offers for the NMB stake should be sent in by October 18.

19 août 2007

Navibulgar to Construct Ships for 86 M EUR

Bulgaria's shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare (Navibulgar) will increase its flee with 3 new ships.

‘Bulyard-Shipbuilding Industry' will construct the vessels.

The contract for the construction of the ships was signed by the executive directors of the two companies: Hristo Donev and Todor Daskalov.

Bulgaria's Premier Sergei Stanishev, Bulgaria's Transport Minister Peter Mutafchiev and Economy Minister Peter Dimitrov attended the signing ceremony.

The ships are foreseen to be cargo ships. They should be constructed until the beginning of 2013. The ships construction will lead to the opening of almost 1,000 working places.

For the future privatization of Navigation Maritime Bulgare were already applied 10 offers. The outstrip for the company is expected to be extremely serious, informed from money.bg.

http://international.ibox.bg/news/id_579072968

05 août 2007

Priorities of our transport policy coincide with those of Portuguese EU Presidency: Minister Mutafchiev

1 August 2007 | 12:10 | FOCUS News Agency

Varna. A conference titled “The future of maritime transport” was opened on Wednesday in the coastal town of Varna, a journalist of Radio Focus-Varna reports. Minister of Transport Petar Mutafchiev is attending the conference. He emphasized on Bulgaria’s extremely important role as an EU outer border. “The priorities of the national transport policy coincide with the priorities and standards of Portuguese EU Presidency,” Minister Mutafchiev said. In his speech the minister stressed the Bulgarian policy was in accordance with the main directions and recommendations set out in the “White Paper: European Transport Policy for 2010” and “Green Paper for Future EU Maritime Policy: European Vision for Oceans and Seas”. Minister Mutafchiev outlined the major directions in Bulgaria’s transport policy: safety, security, ecological conformity, development and modernization of seaport infrastructure, maintenance of minimum labor standards in the sector, stimulation of innovations, development of intermodal transport schemes, and others. Viktoria IVANOVA