A Chinese-Canadian consortium wins contract to build Bogotá’s Metro

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Within the next seven years, Bogotá will have a metro built by an international consortium made up of China Harbour Engineering (CHEC), Xi’an Metro Company and Canada’s Bombardier Inc. Awarded the US$4.3 billion contract over the rival bidder Carso Infraestructura y Construccion owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Spain’s FCC Concesiones de Infraestructura, the Chinese-Canadian team will construct the first line of the electric above-ground metro and operate it over a 20 year period.

The 24 kilometer-long line will count with 16 stations and is expected to move some 3 million passengers every day. With the news that the APCA Transmimetro consortium met all the requirements, President Iván Duque celebrated the decision, stating: “Here, begins the real metro that the city has been waiting decades for.”

Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa also welcomed the result, remaking at a press conference that “this is a huge, gigantic public work, and one we have been carrying-out ever since we arrived at the mayoralty. We are happy to share this good news with Bogotá.” The licitation process opened on April 3, 2018.

The Metro de Bogotá is expected to break ground during the first half of next year and is one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects for the city in recent history. The Metro de Bogotá will complement the existing mass transit articulated bus system – TransMilenio.

For Andrés Escobar Uribe, General Manager of Metro de Bogotá, the end of the bidding process marks the end of a 70-year wait for Bogotanos, and proof that corporations with global experience in transportation infrastructure “have found in Colombia strong institutionality.”

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