Construction on E1 reclamation zone to kick off early 2015

Tomas Hoi

The opening of the tender process for the construction of the E1 reclamation zone was held at the Infrastructure Development Office (GDI), with eight bidders submitting their proposals. The Office estimated that the project would begin at the start of next year.
Located on the northeast of Taipa, the E1 zone is between the Friendship Bridge (Taipa side) and the Taipa Ferry Terminal currently being built. It is part of the five reclamation land parcels approved by the central government in 2009. Measuring 330,000 square meters, the area will be designed to include public and community facilities, transportation infrastructure, business and residential districts and diversified industries.
The construction project includes dredging of waterways, landfilling and building a dam. GDI estimates that after all bidding procedures are finished, the project could start in the first quarter of 2015. The scheme will take up to 700 days to complete.
Tomas Hoi, Chief Officer of Engineering, said that the construction would not affect other projects underway nearby.
“We will require the contractor to follow environmental protection policies. As for construction on the seabed, we will have routine meetings with the Marine and Water Bureau. All temporary channels we use will require the Bureau’s permission beforehand.”
GDI also said in its statement that it would expect the contractor and management company to strictly adhere to the requirements of the service contract and the Office would monitor the construction process.
A total of eight tenderers are competing for the contract. GDI will review the tendered project proposals, experience, financial status, facilities and reputation among other criteria. Project proposals and whether the tenderer has done similar project work before comprise 25 percent of the criteria. Bidder(s) meeting over 65 percent of all requirements with the lowest budget are eligible to win the contract.
The open bid procedure had earlier been launched once last June, when two proposals were submitted with the same budget, which invalidated the bids. It also resulted in lawsuits being filed by the two tenderers against the government.
The authority had to repeat the tendering process yesterday. Mr Hoi said last year’s case was a very rare occurrence and the authority had prepared a new policy. “If the quotations of two qualified bidders are the same, we will move to compare prices of some sub-indices. This time we established three sub-indices to take precedence,” he explained yesterday.
The construction project will create about 180 jobs, according to GDI.