Business Mirror, 18 April 2013
PREQUALIFIED bidders for the P17.5-billion Mactan-Cebu International Airport (MCIA) Project will be known on Monday, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) said on Thursday.
“We are optimistic that the MCIA project will generate the same level of interest from major local and international companies as what we saw from the AFCS [Automatic Fare Collection System] Project. We made sure that this project will also be attractive to investors in order to foster competitive and open bidding,” the DOTC said in a news statement.
Earlier, the P1.72-billion AFCS project, which involves establishing a common ticketing system for Metro Manila’s three overhead rail services, drew nine groups that submitted their prequalification documents.
For the MCIA project, 12 companies purchased invitation documents. They include Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC), JG Summit Holdings Inc., Aboitizland Inc., Filinvest Development Corp.-Filinvest Land Inc., MacroAsia Corp., San Miguel Corp., Prime Power Holdings Corp., Megawide, GMR Infrastructure, First Philippine Holdings and Premier Airport Group of SM Investments Corp.
The DOTC expects foreign airport operators to take part in the bid because of the lack of local expertise in the area of airport rehab and operations.
“Based on our requirements, Philippine companies will have to partner with established airport operators from other countries,” the DOTC said.
“This will benefit our domestic air transport industry, as technology transfer will give local players the opportunity to learn from more advanced and more experienced airport operators,” the department said.
The DOTC had revised its bid criteria to allow companies with interest in airlines to join a consortia that would vie for the project. The change was meant “to encourage broader participation in the bid, in order to provide government with more competitive proposals from the private sector.”
To protect against a potential conflict-of-interest situation during the operation stage, the DOTC and the Mactan-Cebu International Airport Authority said they would include strict competition safeguards in the concession agreement.
One of the Aquino administration’s public-private partnership ventures, the project involves the construction of a new world-class international passenger terminal building in MCIA, with a capacity of about 8 million passengers per year; renovation and expansion of the existing terminal; installation of all the required equipment; and the operation of both new and existing facilities.
When this new international terminal building is completed, the existing terminal, which caters to both domestic and international passengers, will then be converted into an exclusively domestic passenger terminal.
InterAksyon.com
