By NNN-Bernama
Kuala Lumpur : A Malaysian company, Scomi Engineering Berhad, has submitted bids worth billions of USD for monorail projects in Iran, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia as well as in the northenr Malaysian city of Penang, a company official says.
Senior Vice-Ppresident Hilmy Zaini Zainal said Thursday that the company’s bids included those for a project in Iran worth 2.5 billion Ringgit (one USD = about 3.4 Ringgit), in Vietnam at 1.2 billion Ringgit, in Madinah, Saudi Arabia at 500 million USD and in Penang at about 1.2 billion Ringgit.
“Basically these are the projects that we have beeny waiting for quite a while. But we are ready to implement the projects,” Hilmy told reporters after the company’s annual general meeting here.
He said Scomi Engineering, which is involved in energy and logictics engineering, had completed the feasibility, environmental impact and alignment studies for the monorail projects.
However, he said, the announcement on the bids would take a while as it involved various governments.
“The proposals have been given to the respective governments but there is no award of contracts yet. It will take time. There are many processes involved,” he said.
Scomi Engineering expects to know the outcome of the four bids in the next six to 12 months.
Hilmy also hoped that the result on the Penang monorail project would be announced by end of the year. He said the project would be undertaken by its new wholly-owned subsidiary, Mtrans Transportation Sdn Bhd.
Scomi Engineering wholly owns MTrans, an urban transit system provider, following the completion of its acquisition of the remaining nine per cent stake in Mtrans for 5.625 million Ringgit from Azam Kirana (M) Sdn Berhad Thursday.
Hilmy said Scomi Engineering was in the midst of completing its second generation monorail prototype. The new monorail, which is expected to to be completed by July, will have enhanced performance, a new body system, composite body and will be also lighter and much cheaper, he said.
Millions of ringgit was involved in the research and developement for the new monorail, he said, adding that Scomi Engineering was also planning to build two new monorail production plants.