Foreigners to build highways?

26th February 2010

Companies from around the world are eager to build Poland's highways. But Polish firms complain they will go broke if competitors from outside the EU are allowed to make artificially lows bids based on unfair employment practices.

To date the only non-European company to win a road-building contract has been the China Overseas Engineering Group, which is part of the consortium building a 50 km segment of the A-2 highway. The job was initially estimated to cost PLN 2.9 bln, but the winning bid was less than half of that – PLN 1.3 bln. 

This year, nine firms from outside the EU have applied to submit bids for contracts to build roads in Poland. In additions to the Chinese, companies ...