The BERS finances the project for the realization of the street tunnel Eurasia under the Strait of the Bosforo



European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (BERS) will distribute a loan of 150 million dollars destined to finance the project for the realization of the Eurasia tunnel, the street gallery of 5,4 kilometers that will be constructed to -25 meters from the sea level under the Strait of the Bosforo in parallel with the railway tunnel currently under construction that - which part of the Pan-European corridor of transport IV - it will be intercontinental railway front line between Europe and Asia through the Bosforo. Once completed in 2017, the Eurasia tunnel and the relative roads of access (the total length of the project is of 14,6 kilometers) will connect the European part and that anatolica of Istanbul.

The loan of the BERS will complete the financing 1,4 billion dollars with the loan of 350 million dollars by the European Investment Bank (BEAUTIFUL) let alone a package of financings and guarantees of the South Koreans Eximbank and K-Surah (Korea Trade Insurance Corporation) with the participation of SMBC, Standard Charter and Mizuho.

The Eurasia tunnel will be realized by the ATAS (Avrasya Tuneli Insaat ve Yatirim), the consortium constituted in 2010 from the Turk Yapi Merkezi and the South Koreans SK E&C, Samwhan Corporation and Hanshin that the concession by the government of Turkey stops in order to construct and to manage the tunnel.

"The project - it has found the responsible for infrastructure of the BERS, Thomas Maier - is not only a milestone in the connections between Asia and Europe. As first great public-private partnership in the street field with mostly foreign financings, it will open the road to the financing of the impressive series of the infrastructural projects of Turkey. This year - Maier has explained - Turkey and Russia have seen the greatest projects than PPP in Europe, to confirmation who the emerged markets of Europe represent credible alternatives of business for operators and for the investor. So the Eurasia tunnel will accelerate the future in many ways".

"The Eurasia tunnel - it has added Mike Davey, director of the BERS for Turkey - will at home allow with pendular a return more express, but which hub will strengthen also the international role of Istanbul aerial having determined faster possibilities of transport from the airports on both sides of the Bosforo. The BERS - it has continued Davey - considers that Turkey, than today is one of the more dynamic economies of the world, it needs greater and better ability than transport and we will take in consideration other infrastructure projects that will be profitable easier to travel from and for Turkey".

From the beginning of own activity in Turkey in 2009, the BERS has invested about two billions of euro in the nation in about 50 projects.