site.btaCabinet Signs Contract for Delivery of 20 Electric Trains with Skoda

A contract for the delivery of twenty electric multiple-unit trains, financed under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, was signed on Wednesday in the Council of Ministers by caretaker Minister of Transport Krasimira Stoyanova and Petr Novotny, CEO of Skoda Transportation, in the presence of caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev. 

The contracting authority is the Ministry of Transport and Communications, and the contractor is a consortium of Skoda Transportation and Skoda Vagonka. The value of the rolling stock is BGN 511.4 million and the delivery period is two years. 

Prime Minister Glavchev said that no new trains have been purchased in Bulgaria for twenty years.

He stressed that there was an opportunity to purchase five more railcars with an annex and he would be happy if that happened. The funds have been provided under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, which is an example of what European cooperation leads to, he said. BGN 1.5 billion has been earmarked under this fund. The trains are worth BGN 511 million, they provide 300 seats, and reach a maximum speed of 160 km/h. The caretaker Prime Minister expressed hope that within two years the contract would be fulfilled, and the railcars would start running, and that the long-term cooperation with Skoda will continue.

According to Minister Stoyanova, this contract is a significant step in the development of Bulgaria’s national railway.

Petr Novotny, for his part, thanked for the opportunity for cooperation and said that the company has 10,000 employees and seven plants operating throughout Europe. Skoda's products are well known in Bulgaria, Novotny stressed and gave as an example the trolleybuses in five Bulgarian cities and the locomotives for the Sofia subway produced by the company. “We have an obligation not only to supply products, but also to ensure their maintenance, which is a guarantee of cooperation between the country and the company,” Novotny said.