A bird’s eye view of the Almaty Ring Road whose operation and maintenance will be carried outr by Korea Expressway Corp. (Photo: KEC)

Korea Expressway Corp. (KEC) and SK E&C signed a deal on the operation and maintenance of the Almaty Ring Road with BAKAD Investment and Operation LLP, the owner of the road project, KEC said on May 26.

The project calls for creating a 66-km-long ring road in Almaty with four to six lanes. SK E&C will be responsible for construction of the road at a cost of about 625 billion won.

KEC will team up with SK&C in the establishment of a locally incorporated entity, which will be done after the dedication of the road, to be charged with operation and maintenance for 16 years at a cost of about 175 billion won.

The project is Kazakhstan’s first public-private partnership project whose value stands at about 900 billion won.
KEC and SK E&C struck a deal with a group of investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other multilateral development banks (MDBs) to finance the ring road concession project in Nur-Sultan on Feb. 13.

With the signing of a deal on the operation and maintenance of the ring road, the thorniest issue among the preconditions set by the group of investors - financing the project - the project is expected to be pushed ahead.

The latest deal was made through teleconference meetings among negotiations as their physical entry was banned due the spread of COVID-19.

Almaty’s ring road project is KEC’s first overseas road operation and maintenance project. KEC aims to win up to 1,000 km by 2030 the length of overseas roads whose operation and maintenance will be done by the corporation.

KEC has so far entered overseas markets by primarily carrying out construction inspection and technology consulting services. The corporation plans to strengthen its overseas business turf in the mainstay operation & maintenance segment down the world to secure a long-term, stable profit-taking structure and spearhead the private sector’s overseas market entry.

KEC has become a preferred bidder on the operation and maintenance of Bangladesh’s largest Padma Multipurpose Bridge, a 10-year project worth about 100 billion won. If KEC, now involving the inspection of the bridge, finishes negations successfully, the corporation is expected to land the project around the end of this year.

A KEC official said KEC will provide its superb services there by making the most of expressway operation and maintenance expertise the corporation has accumulated in Korea for the past 50 years.

KEC said the corporation will implement a $21 million project to provide consultation services to design and supervise the Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway from Nepali Army. The 72.5-km-long Kathmandu-Tarai Expressway project is a $3.5 billion mega project to build an expressway to link Kathmandu and Nijgadh, a site in which an international airport is to be built.

The construction project is implemented in a 54-month fast-track format to carry out design and construction simultaneously, and KEC will perform responsibilities such as design, design review and construction inspection.

KEC Forms ‘Team Korea’ to Win Nepal’s Biggest Expressway Consulting Service Project

KEC teamed up with Pyunghwa Engineering Consultants Ltd to form a consortium dubbed “Team Korea,” and the consortium won the completion against 22 global consortia, including ones from countries such as Singapore, Australia and Singapore.

Nepal is a mountainous nation similar to Korea. Team Korea was awarded better grades in overall evaluations - setting technology and price at a ratio of 90 percent to 10 percent. KEC has been recognized for its experience related to the construction of long tunnels and bridges.

The private company has superb design and inspection capabilities. KEC has won 166 projects from 39 countries since 2005. Of the total, 18 projects are still under way.

Shin Yong-seok, head of KEC’s Overseas Business Division, said, “KEC’s technological power and the private sector’s local network has secured global competitiveness, and we plans to support Korean companies’ overseas market entry and the government’s policies to invigorate the Korean overseas construction industry.”