On May 18 last year, the Ministry of Construction (MOC) invited local and foreign investors to submit Expressions of Interest (EOI) for the construction of an elevated four-lane ring road under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in Yangon.

The ministry, together with the Yangon regional government, is planning to build a 47.5-kilometre four-lane elevated ring road, which is expected to connect downtown Yangon, Yangon Port, Yangon International Airport, Mingalardon Industrial Park and Yangon-Mandalay highway.

Local and international companies have already submitted EOIs, covering areas such as designing, engineering, financing, construction, operations and maintenance before the end of June.

A total 17 local companies have submitted an EOI for this project, including Capital Development, Max Myanmar, MTSH, Shwe Taung and others. Others who have applied include 13 Chinese companies such as China Harbour Engineering Company, China Railway International Group as well as China Road and Bridge Corporation.

Among the seven Japanese companies who applied, there are JFE Engineering Corporation, Marubeni, Sojitz Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation. Three Korean firms – Daewoo Engineering & Construction, Korea Expressway Corporation, SK Engineering & Construction – submitted an EOI. Others include three Indian companies, two Thai companies, two Turkish firms and one each from Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and France as well as a

Myanmar-Malaysia consortium.

The invitation for EOIs is a first step of the tender process, which enables the ministry to measure the rate of market interest, MOC said. The ministry is planning to issue the Request for Qualifications in August and the issuance of the Request for Proposals is expected to be issued within the final quarter of this year.

With support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the ministry said it might decide to split the project into multiple sections and tender and implement them individually, in order to speed up the process. The project is designed to resolve the traffic in the city and “channel the growth of industries and communities in the region and in Yangon metropolitan area”.