Austrian construction company Strabag AG filed a complaint against a bid made by the Chinese Road and Bridge Corporation to construct Croatia’s strategically important Peljesac Bridge.
Austrian construction company Strabag AG filed a complaint on Monday about the bid made by the Chinese Road and Bridge Corporation to build the Peljesac Bridge in southern Croatia.
The bridge connecting the coast with the southern Peljesac peninsula is strategic for Croatia because it bypasses a short strip of the Bosnian coast that interrupts the continuity of Croatian and EU territory.
Croatia’s state roads company, Croatian Roads, announced on January 12 that the Chinese company, which made the cheapest bid in the tender – 279 million euros – will construct the bridge.
Strabag, one of the biggest construction companies in Central and South-Eastern Europe with over 70,000 employees, put in in a significantly more expensive bid at 351 million euros.
However, Strabag filed a complaint within the legal 15-day period for objections, claiming that it is “highly likely” that the Chinese company used what it called “dumping prices” to win the bid, Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji list reported on Tuesday
The complaint also alleged that as the company is in Chinese state ownership, it is likely that it “received state aid for entering the European Union market through this project and which is not in line with the acquis communautaire of the EU”.
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