Road Structures

Paraguay is in the process of sourcing a portion of the necessary funding for its Transchaco road project.

In Guatemala the bidding process for a series of road projects has now been halted. There are concerns over irregularities or mistakes that have arisen during the tendering for the contracts. In all 128 tenders including road maintenance and repair jobs have been stopped. The ruling was made by Guatemala’s road conservation agency, Covial.

Colombia is pushing ahead with its 4G road development programme. Progress is being made with the construction of the Girardot-Honda-Puerto Salgar road connection, which is expected to cost US$518.6 million and is around 37% complete.

A US$89.7 million finance package from the World Bank will pay for the construction of a new highway in Rwanda. The project calls for the construction of a 66.5km highway, which forms part of a larger plan to build a 117km route from Ngoma to Nyanza.

Spanish firm Copasa of Spain has won the package of works to build Uruguay’s Ruta 14 Centro-Oeste highway. The contract is a build and operate deal, while the concession is for a 20 year term.

The cost of a highway project in Panama has increased significantly since the work was first awarded. Much of the higher price for the work is due to the installation of additional safety measures.

A concession package has been agreed for a toll road project in the Bashkortostan Republic. The US$512 million construction project will provide a new link from the M5 Ural highway route to Ufa, the capital of the Bashkortostan Republic.

Work on the Highlands Highway in Papua New Guinea now looks set to commence shortly. The project had been delayed as local residents had to be resettled before construction could start in earnest. The US$85.4 million project to build the Keltiga to Kagamuma stretch of the highway is being carried out by a Chinese contractor, China Harbour Engineering Co (CHEC). In all the project is costing $190.6 million and involves building a highway route featuring two lanes in either direction.

A shortlist of six firms has been drawn up in the bidding process for an expressway project in Laos. The new expressway will connect capital Vientiane with Pakxe and will be around 585km long.