Siemens ‘Eager to Bid’ in Turkey High Speed Rail Tender, Searching for Local Partners

The director of Siemens Turkey’s high speed trains department has said the company plans to bid in a tender expected to be opened by the Transport Ministry to buy a total of 80 high speed trains in mid-2016.

"We want to bid and we are evaluating the process now,” said Siemens’ Cüneyt Genç in an interview with Reuters.

Any companies that want to bid must find a local partner and make the production in a facility established in Turkey.

"We are in the assessment process in finding a local partner,” Genç added.

The Turkish State Railways (TCDD) bought a total of seven high speed rail sets from Siemens in 2013. The company, which submitted one of these sets, plans to deliver the others this year.

Siemens has been establishing a tramway factory in the northwestern district of Gebze for a 30-million-euro investment. The facility is planned to open by the end of 2017.

The country plans to open a tender to acquire 80 high-speed trains by the middle of this year, Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım stated on March 3, adding that the expected value of the investment will be around $5-6 billion. The ministry plans to acquire a total of 106 trains in line with a plan to extend the country’s high-speed train network.

Three companies have so far announced that they would bid: While Spain’s Patentes Talgo plans to bid with Turkey’s Tümosan and Canada’s Bombardier with Turkey’s Bozankaya, France’s Alstom has not named its local partner yet.

(www.hurriyetdailynews.com)