Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Belinda Balluku announced on Thursday that the international competition for the construction of the new port in Porto Romano has been reopened.

According to her, the construction of the port of Porto Romano is a strategic investment for Albania and the region. The deadline for the submission of offers is February 7 of the coming year, while it is anticipated that the completion of the first phase of the works will take 40 months.

Deputy Prime Minister Balluku invited local and foreign economic operators to participate in the international tender. Referring to the data published in the Public Procurement Agency, the estimated limit fund is Lek 39.3 billion, or about Euro 400 million.

Initially, the competition was opened at the end of July this year. The tendering process for the new Port in Porto Romano was led by the Dutch company Royal Haskoning, but due to inadequate offers, the tender was canceled.

Porto Romano is considered one of the most important port investments in the country. This port will not only serve Albania but also Kosovo and North Macedonia, connected by rail with two dry ports, respectively in Pristina and Skopje.

The port will be built with public funds as specified in the tender documents and the contracting authority in this case is the Durrës Port Authority.

In the tender documents, it is clarified that the Durrës Port Authority has decided to develop the procurement procedure above the upper monetary limit without dividing it into lots, based on the forecasts of the works for the facility according to the contract: "Detailed Project of the New Integrated Commercial Port of Durrës in Porto Romano".

"The Contracting Authority finds it technically impossible to divide this project into separate lots," the tender documents state. According to the accompanied document, technical documentation, including the Technical Report, Technical Specifications, and Work Forecast prepared by the designer, clearly shows that the work processes for this object are closely related to each other. "Therefore, it is impossible for the Contracting Authority to determine in advance which volumes should be allocated.

These activities are closely related to each other and their separation into separate contracts increases the overall risk profile of the project due to the contractual interactions that are created. Combining all these components into a single contract eliminates these contractual interactions, reducing the possibility of contractual claims and reducing the risk profile of the project, the document states.

"Also, a single contract approach makes the project more commercially attractive to qualified international contractors, increasing the likelihood of receiving more competitive bids," the document states.

Between the two alternatives for the development of the new Port in Porto Romano, where the activity of the current one in Durrës will be moved, the government has chosen the C2 model. This model envisages a port developing onshore rather than variant C1 which envisages development at sea.

At the end of 2022, during the presentation of the project, it was underlined that the project has a significant cost, so it will require the commitment of budget funds, Port Authority funds, grants, and also the private sector, thus leaving open the possibility of PPP. At least 46% of the funding will be provided by the government and 54% by the private sector.