Finance & Funding

Three road tunnels have been proposed as part of a highway project by the Myanmar Government. The tunnels would run through the Wa Ta Lone Mountain, Khauk Nwe Mountain 1 and Khauk New Mountain 2 in the Shan Mountains. The tunnels would form part of the project for the Taunggyi-Loilin road in Shan State. A study into the tunnels will be carried out by the Myanmar Government. Should the project go ahead, the tunnel through Wa Ta Lone Mountain would be built first as it is thought to be the most

Bartco Traffic Equipment, an Australian variable message sign manufacturer that sells into Australia and New Zealand, has joined the Torquay Holdings group. Bartco Traffic Equipment is a separate business to Bartco UK which along with MVIS UK owns Torquay Holdings, based in Chesterfield, UK. VMS was started in 2012 when it brought the first five-colour mobile VMS to the UK market, designed in Australia by Bartco Traffic Equipment. Following five years of growth and development, along with Bartco UK, it

Work is starting on an upgrade for a 100km stretch of road in Zambia. The route connects Nchelenge and Chiengi districts and will benefit from a new asphalt surface. The project is costing US$77 million and is being carried out by the contractor Sinohydro Zambia. Delays to the work have been caused by heavy rains however. The Zambian Government has paid an initial $3.8 million for the work to be carried out and the project is expected to take two years to complete.

Plans for the £1.6 billion Stonehenge Tunnel bypass in the UK have now been revised.

Brazilian road concession company Arteris is interested in acquiring a number of assets from Odebrecht Transport (OTP). The two road concessions currently managed by OTP that Arteris is showing interest in are the 851km Rota do Oeste network in Mato Grosso and the 297km Rota das Bandeiras road network in Sao Paulo. These are the biggest road concessions managed by OTP at present, as well as being the only two for which OTP has a 100% stake.

The European Commission has given the go-ahead for an acquisition of Spanish highway firm Abertis by German construction company Hochtief. Hochtief is itself a subsidiary of Spanish construction firm ACS but the EC ruling says that there are no competition issues in the markets affected by the deal. Spain’s highway concession market is covered by a regulatory system to minimise the risk of any one company reaching a position that is too dominant. With the EC ruling having been given on the deal, Spain’s

A new private network platform has been developed that I designed to make it easier to sell construction equipment worldwide. Called Krank, this online company-to-company network is designed for trading large items of capital equipment, both regionally and internationally. This trading system allows companies to create private networks between each other and trade large items such as cranes, wheeled loaders, trucks or excavators. The site acts as a private sale room with users able to customise their

China plans to set up an “international court” for settling disputes among companies participating in Belt and Road transportation infrastructure work, according to Chinese media. The Global Time newspaper – with strong links to the communist government – reported that Chinese companies are facing more foreign-related lawsuits as they step up investment and business in countries covered by Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. The report called Belt and Road “a brainchild of Xi”, referring to Xi Jinping

A loan worth US$250 million will be help pay for road development work in parts of India. The loan is being provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in a deal agreed with the Indian Government. This funding will be used for road projects in five of India’s states. The work will focus on boosting connectivity and safety, particularly for rural areas. In all some 12,000km of roads will be improved with the programme. Another $250 million loan will also be provided by the ADB with this package intended to