Turkish company to build $400 million bridge in Kremenchuk

Turkish company Dogus Insaat Ve Ticaret will build a new 3-kilometer bridge across the Dnipro River in Kremenchuk, a city of 225,000, located 290 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.

The bridge will cost Hr 11.25 billion ($400 million), which is 11% lower than the initial offer from the state road agency, Ukravtodor.

The open and transparent tender helped the state save over Hr 1.2 billion, Avtodor chairman Alexander Kubrakov said on Jan. 21.

“The fact that new international players are appearing in the road sector, immediately ready to compete on an equal footing with others, is a sign of a healthy market,” he wrote in Ukravtodor’s press release.

The cable bridge will have four lanes, two in each direction, linking a highway with the center of the town. The date of construction hasn’t been specified yet.

Dogus Insaat will design and build the bridge, with 95% of its materials coming from Ukraine-based manufacturers.

Founded in 1951, the Turkish infrastructure company is one of the largest in the world. It has built more than 250 infrastructure projects globally, including 1,515 kilometers of roads, 43 kilometers of bridges, 340 kilometers of metro lines and 21 dams.

The company employs more than 35,000 people. It was worth $5.2 billion in 2019.

This is not the only construction project in Ukraine currently being carried out by a Turkish firm.

According to the nonprofit Infrastructure Transparency Initiative, two Turkish firms were among the top five contractors for Ukraine’s infrastructure projects.

In the first six months of 2020, Onur Group won tenders worth $880 million and Ozaltin Insaat Ticaret won a $43-million tender — all to repair a key highway that connects southern Ukraine with Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which has 1.4 million residents and is located 500 kilometers east of Kyiv.

According to a survey conducted by the U.S.-based Engineering News Record analytical magazine, the 250 largest construction companies in the world last year included 44 Turkish companies. This makes the country the second-largest contractor in the world after China.

After almost three decades, Turkish companies completed over 200 infrastructure projects across the country with a combined worth of $7 billion.