GMR in the race for two international airports in Montenegro

Hyderabad: Infrastructure major GMR Group is moving ahead to bag contracts on two international airports in Montenegro, a southern European country, as it emerged as one of the qualified bidders. The Montenegrin Transport Ministry issued a notification confirming the qualified bidding from GMR Group among the four pre-qualified bidders. The other three are Incheon International Airport Corporation, Groupe ADP Consortium and Corporation America Airport. Airports of Montenegro JSC is operating the Montenegro Airports.

Seven companies submitted bids for two airports. The Montenegro government will award a 30-year concession contract to run the country’s two international airports in Podgorica and Tivat.

Montenegrin Transport Ministry said that it followed the point 8.5 of the pre-qualification documentation for the concession for the airports of Montenegro. The tender committee has notified that all the four companies listed have fulfilled the pre-qualification criteria from the pre-qualification documentation, and "we designate them as Qualified Bidders".

The Montenegrin government on July 25, 2019, adopted the Concession Act, and after that formed the Bid Commission to conduct the process of selecting a private partner for the project through an open, international, competitive tender.

The prospective bidder – if it is a consortium, the financial member – must demonstrate that it had assets of at least EUR 200 million over the last five reported fiscal years.

In the case of a consortium, the aggregate assets of all members of the bloc must be at least EUR 400 million over the last five reported fiscal years, according to the bid document.

GMR Group’s portfolio, operational and underdevelopment, comprises airports in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mactan Cebu International Airport in partnership with Megawide in the Philippines. At the same time, greenfield projects under development include an airport at Mopa in Goa and one at Heraklion in Crete of Greece in partnership with GEK Terna.

The GMR-Megawide consortium has won the Clark International Airport’s EPC project, the second project in the Philippines.

The GMR Group recently received the Letter of Intent for development and operations of a greenfield airport at Bhogapuram in Andhra Pradesh and Nagpur airport on PPP basis.