THE Transportation department is inviting Japanese firms to bid to supply 120 new trains for the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line-1, which will accommodate higher passenger volumes once the Ayala and Metro Pacific groups extend the line to Bacoor, Cavite.

The project will be funded through a loan extended by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) — signed with the government on March 27, 2013 — so the bid will be exclusive to Japanese-led companies or consortia.

“Pursuant to the rules for Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding, the DoTr (Department of Transportation) is inviting eligible engineering, procurement and construction bidders of Japanese nationality to participate in the competitive bidding process following the procedures specified in the guidelines on the Japanese ODA Loans for procurement of new rolling stock Light Rail Vehicles (LRV) 4th generation,” it said in its invitation to bid published in a newspaper yesterday.

The new 120 light rail vehicles will be operated in 30 four-car train sets, allowing the line to accommodate 750,000 passengers daily, from just around 500,000 at present, the Transportation department has said.

The winning bidder will also be in charge of the coaches’ design, production, verification, delivery, testing, commissioning, technical support materials associated with the operation and maintenance of the vehicles and training for maintenance staff, engineers and operators.

Interested parties can buy bid documents for the supply contract on Dec. 28 to April 13, 2017 and attend a pre-bid conference on Jan. 20. The bids must be submitted by and will be opened on April 13.

“Bidding will be conducted through standard bidding documents design build, single-stage two-envelope procedure with no pre-qualification in accordance with the applicable guidelines for procurement under Japanese ODA Loans and is open to all bidders from eligible countries,” DoTr added.

The new coaches are set to be deployed to the LRT-1 Cavite Extension public-private partnership project, which will extend the train line from Baclaran to Bacoor, Cavite. The project involves the rehabilitation of the existing 21-kilometer (km) line and an 11.7-km extension to Bacoor.

Light Rail Manila Consortium (LRMC) — a consortium of Ayala Corp., Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp. (MPIC) and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte. Ltd. — bagged the P64.9-billion LRT-1 Cavite Extension project, which will extend the train line. It also took over the operations, maintenance and extension of LRT-1 last September. Its concession agreement with the government will run for 32 years.

Construction of the LRT Cavite extension project has been hindered by right-of-way issues, which are expected to be resolved by next year.

The first bidding for the procurement of the 120 LRVs or train cars held in March was declared a failure with no offers received by the government from Japanese firms.

MPIC is one of three Philippine subsidiaries of Hong Kong’s First Pacific Co. Ltd., the others being PLDT Inc. and Philex Mining Corp. Hastings Holdings, Inc. — a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc. — maintains an interest in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls.

29 December 2016
By Imee Charlee C. Delavin