The main reason why the construction of railway infrastructure in Serbia costs much more than, for example, in neighboring Croatia is that the contractors agree on a direct contract instead of choosing the most favorable offer in the tender, according to the domestic expert public.
Dusan Nikezic, President of the Committee on Economy and Finance of the Party of Freedom and Justice, stated that the construction of the Belgrade-Subotica railway costs 9.25 million euros per kilometer, while Chinese companies offer Croatia the construction of the Zagreb-Karlovac railway at a price of 3.8 million euros per kilometer.
The Belgrade-Subotica railway is being built by Chinese contractors, except for the section from Stara Pazova to Novi Sad, which is being built by the Russian company RZD International.
Nikezic wondered whether it was possible for the railway through the “Vojvodina plain” to cost 2.5 times more than the one whose construction the Chinese offer to their neighbors in Croatia.
Economist Milan R. Kovacevic points out that it is difficult for him to compare the construction of these two sections, given that he is not familiar with a number of specific technical details, but that in Serbia when it comes to infrastructure projects the problem is that they are not built by choosing partners in tenders and they are already obtained after a direct agreement.
– If in Serbia the contractors of such projects, even those related to the railway infrastructure, are selected at tenders where the most favorable price is achieved, the costs would be significantly lower than is the case now. Instead, the construction is entrusted to the one who provided the money to finance the project, that is, to the companies from that country. Since there are no other offers for the construction job, the price is fixed and high. It is a great pity that infrastructure projects are being built in such a way, and that is the main reason why they are generally more expensive in Serbia than is the case in the region – Kovacevic believes.
Goran Rodic, vice president of the Construction Chamber of Serbia, agrees with his opinion.
– In Croatia, the authorities are looking for the most favorable bidder through a tender procedure. In that way, they get the most favorable price for performing those works. In our country, everything ends with a direct agreement and that significantly increases the price of works. If the Belgrade-Subotica railway was built in such a way that the contractor would be determined at the tender, the price would be significantly lower at the level of those in the environment where such a process is carried out. Also, the price of those jobs would be significantly lower if they were performed by domestic construction companies. And Serbia has good builders, but over the years, that profession has collapsed by not getting jobs from the state. This can be a big problem because in the end we will not have a domestic operative that will be able to maintain the railways. In other words, we will have to entrust that job to foreign companies at a much higher price than it would be for our construction companies to do it – our interlocutor explains.
By the way, the section of the Belgrade-Subotica railway between Belgrade and Novi Sad, according to the announcements, should be completed by the end of the current year. It was also announced that the construction of the section from Novi Sad to the border with Hungary should start on September 1. The section should be 108 kilometers long and its construction is expected to take 33 months. The contractor is the Chinese consortium of China Railway International and China Communications Construction Company, and the investment is financed from the funds of the Chinese Exim Bank, Danas reports.
