The Hungarian government has decided to launch a new public procurement procedure for the upgrade of the Hungarian section of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line.
According to MTI, the move comes in light of the estimated cost of the project increasing by about 10 percent. The Government Information Centre confirmed the government made the decision at its December 12th session.
The projected cost of upgrading the 152-km section between Budapest and Kelebia, on the border with Serbia, was 578 billion HUF (1.79bn EUR) in May 2018, but the best offer made since then has been 693 billion HUF.
Sources reveal that because the government is unwilling to shoulder a cost overshoot, it has launched a new public procurement procedure. As a consequence, construction will only start in 2020, a year later than scheduled.
The upgrade project aims to facilitate the delivery of Chinese goods to Europe arriving at the Greek port of Piraeus. These goods would be brought by rail through Serbia to Hungary.