CEF – Signing ceremony of contracts for development projects
On 19th April 2018, in the Maritime History Museum of the Croatian Littoral in Rijeka, with the presence of Minister of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković, Port Authority of Rijeka marked the beginning of a new large investment cycle at the port of Rijeka with the signing of the contracts for development projects in port of Rijeka, together with the partners of the Croatian Railways Infrastructure Ltd. as well as contractors from Sarda Ltd., Kolektor Koling Ltd. and Euroasfalt Ltd. On this occasion, two contracts for development projects were signed with total value of EUR 37.60 million. (co-financed by Connecting European Facility – CEF). The contracts allow the implementation of a unique modern information port system based on the European ports and the significant development of the intermodal connection of the container terminal Brajdica. The importance of the construction of a new railway infrastructure and its implementation is strongly supported by the City of Rijeka by signing the “Agreement on the Arrangement of Mutual relations in the construction of the Project Reconstruction of the Railway Station Rijeka Brajdica” with HŽ Infrastructure Ltd.
Other representatives of the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure attended the ceremony, the delegates of the County of Primorje-Gorski kotar, the World Bank and the European Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), as well as other representatives of the port community conisisted of representatives of the Police of the Republic of Croatia, The Customs Administration, the main concession company Port of Rijeka j.s.c. Adriatic Gate j.s.c. Janaf j.s.c. and other concessionaires, leading shipping companies and agencies.
Denis Vukorepa, Executive Director of the Port of Rijeka Authority and Rajko Badurina, Managing Director of Sarda Ltd. on behalf of the bidder’s community, signed a contract for Technical Assistance in Design and Implementation of the Port Community System Port System Information System, worth EUR 310,000, within the CEF Project, totaling EUR 1.66 million. It is a system that will be compatible with the Croatian Integrated Maritime Information System CIMIS under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Croatia and with the Customs Administration system. This is the first step towards a complex single data processing interface called NSW (Nacional Single Window), which is necessarily implemented in the port system of the Republic of Croatia, modeled on European ports systems. The central event was also signed by signing the second Contract for the project “Development of the multimodal platform in Rijeka Rijeka and connection with the Adriatic Gate terminal” in the amount of EUR 35,556 million, of which 85% is co-financed by the European Union funds, and the remaining 15% by national budget.
The project will be a comprehensive process ,carried out in three phases; reconstruction of the existing tracks at the Rijeka Brajdica Station, construction of four new tracks on the container terminal, reconstruction of existing ones and a new contact network with signal security and telecommunication devices. Likewise, the existing Sušak tunnel will expand and build a new pull-out in the extended tunnel. It is also planned to install complete new station lighting.
All of these works will significantly increase the capacity of the Brajdica station and the container terminal and will certainly contribute to the development of the port of Rijeka as well as the increase of freight transport by rail. The contract was signed by Denis Vukorepa, the Executive Director of Port of Rijeka Authority, Ivan Kršić, CEO of HŽ Infrastructure Ltd. Šime Vadnal, Managing Director of Kolektor Koling d.o.o., on behalf of the bidder and Mr. Hamed Ramić, Director, Euro-Asphalt j.s.c. It should be noted that the contractors were selected in the procedure and implementation of the Public Procurement of the Porto f Rijeka Authority as a public contractor.
No less important for the intermodal development of the port of Rijeka is the signing of the Agreement on the Arrangement of Mutual Relations during the execution of the works as part of the project “Reconstruction of the Rijeka Brajdica Railway Station. This agreement was signed by the Vojko Obersnel, Mayor of the City of Rijeka, and Ivan Kršić, President of HŽ Infrastructure Ltd.The signatories of this agreement allow for a smooth organization of urban life during the execution of works in the coming period. The period of the investment cycle at the port of Rijeka ends at the end of 2020 and 2021. as long as it is planned to realize six development projects funded by the European Fund CEF in a total investment of 115.5 million euros. It is important to emphasize that the entire investment cycle for this period does not only involve the realization of European projects and investments mentioned, but also the realization of ongoing capital projects. In the first place, by 2021, a number of strategic projects are expected to be realized; construction of Zagreb Deep Sea container terminal as a component of Rijeka Gateway project, the investment in the D403 connection through the combined financing of funds from the European funds and the state budget and ultimately the investment of the future concessionaire on the new container terminal in the transhipment equipment which will have a major impact on the capacity and efficiency of the port of Rijeka in the transhipment of cargo and a significant increase in the share of railway transport of containers on the railway line.