Board briefed on purple line auction

The auction process is under way and bidders that passed the initial requirements were endorsed by the Japan Bank International for Cooperation (JBIC) on October 6.

Supoj Saplom, director-general of Land Transport Department and chairman of the MRTA board, said the committee for civil-engineering auction of the Purple Line would soon hold a meeting to consider the opening of qualified auctions for the first and second construction contracts.

"In fact, the committee wanted to open the auctions on October 10. But the Purple Line is a mega-investment project with investment of more than Bt10 billion. This has to be reported to the MRTA board first," he said, adding that the date to open the auction will be determined after that.

The auction's opening will follow the shortlist proposed by the MRTA, said Supoj.

He said that for the first contract, the bidders included Italian-Thai Development and CKTC Joint Venture (Tokyu Construction, and Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction).

For the second contract, the bidders include CKTC Joint Venture and ITON Joint Venture (Nawarat Pattankarn and Obayashi Corp, and Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction).

Supoj said the MRTA would invite the media to witness the auction's opening.

He said for the third contract, the committee had not yet proposed the list of qualified bidders for the JBIC to consider.

The bidders are Italian-Thai Development, CKTC Joint Venture, CH Karnchang, Takenaka-Ritta Joint Venture and PAR Joint Venture, which consists of Ascon, Power Line Engineering and RNC (Thailand).