Athens, January 27, 2016/Independent Balkan News Agency
By Olga Mavrou
The Greek republic asset development fund (HRADF or TAIPED) will proclaim a new tender for railway service operator TRAINOSE. According to sources the first tender was not an ideal one, but the next is expected to be better. The main reason is that the companies that were initially interested in TRAINOSE lost their interest, while other companies that were interested could not participate in the first tender – the deadline expired on October while quite a few issues of TRAINOSE were not yet settled. For example till one week ago the structure of OSE group, concerning “intercompany contracts” between its subsidiaries was not clear and clarification was a prerequisite for privatization.
Thus, in a general meetings yesterday between TRAINOSE and ROSCO (maintenance) and GAIAIOSE (real estate of the Railway company) there were approved four separate contracts concerning the exact stand of each subsidiary and its relation to TRAINOSE –also the relation of TRAINOSE to the state concerning the coverage of unprofitable lines. Those contracts give a much more precise [profile of the company, something important for the would be investor. It seems highly probable that one of them will be Chinese, since after the acquisition of the Piraeus Port Authority, Chinese will be interested in using also the Greek train network (freight trains) for their containers with destinations in other European countries.