The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure expects concession tenders for the Olvia stevedoring company and the Kherson Commercial Seaport to be held in the period of March-April, and contracts with the winners of the tenders are expected to be signed in the period of May-June 2019.
Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian announced this at a news briefing at the Cabinet of Ministers on Tuesday, the CFTS portal reports, citing the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, the consideration of the conclusions on an analysis of the effectiveness of concession projects is expected to be completed by the end of December, and the Ministry of Infrastructure will prepare tender documentation (with the involvement of the Ministry of International Development & Trade and the Ministry of Finance) in January. The concession tender documentation for the Olvia and Kherson seaports are expected to be approved by the Cabinet of Ministers in in February.
The concessionaires are expected to invest a total of UAH 17.3 billion in the Olvia seaport over a 35-year period and UAH 1.4 billion in the Kherson seaport over a 30-year period.
The investments will focus on development of the ports and upgrade of their infrastructure.
Construction of a new grain terminal with a capacity of 2 million tons per year (investment of UAH 1.56 billion) at Olvia and urgent upgrade of assets (investment of UAH 216 million) at the Kherson seaport are planned in the first three years.
As the CFTS portal reported earlier, more than 25 Ukrainian companies and companies based in the United States China, France, Switzerland, Great Britain, Japan, Turkey, Qatar, and South Korea previously expressed interest in the concession tender for the Olvia and Kherson seaports.
The Ministry of Infrastructure and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is a member of the World Bank group, signed a memorandum of understanding on development of public-private partnership in the port industry on November 14, 2017, under which the IFC will help to structure public-private partnership projects in the two Ukrainian ports mentioned above.
