We are still wanted in the East

During the Belarusian and Polish Economic Forum “Dobrosąsiedztwo 2016” in Minsk attended by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Polish companies trading as TINES SA and UNIBEP SA signed - together with the executive committee of the city of Vitebsk - a memorandum concerning the modernisation of 20 km of tramways. The “design and construct” project is planned for the years 2017-2020. 

This document also includes the preparation of a business plan and the raising of funds for the granting of export credit which are necessary for the implementation of the project.

Vitebsk is one of four Belarusian cities with a tramway system. Each day, the public transport in the city is used by more than 250,000 passengers. The memorandum signed approves the modernisation of sections whose total length equals to more than 55% of the length of all of the tramways in the city.

“Our years of presence in the markets of the East and the scope of our completed projects enabled us to gain unique experience in the area of infrastructure. We are ready and willing to implement huge export projects”, says Tomasz Szuba, President of TINES SA.

“As the general contractor, we have completed several considerable construction projects in Russia and Belarus. The execution of this memorandum is an example proving that when Polish companies act together, they can be more effective in winning big infrastructural projects outside Poland”, says Jan Mikołuszko, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of UNIBEP SA.

Both TINES S.A. and UNIBEP SA are big companies with a great deal of experience in completing contracts in the East. The portfolio of the TINES group from Cracow, whose business activity includes, among other objectives, the production of state-of-the-art structures of railways, comprises the projects of modernisation of tramways in St. Petersburg, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, as well as contracts for the construction of the underground in Almaty, Kiev, and Minsk. On the other hand, UNIBEP SA belongs to a group of the biggest construction companies in Poland. It is also the biggest Polish exporter of construction services. The projects accomplished by this company in Eastern markets include, for example, the construction of hotels in Kalinigrad, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Minsk.

Both companies are founder members of Polski Klaster Eksporterów Budowlanych [Polish Cluster of Construction Exporters]. One of the main objectives of the organisation is the internationalisation of the Polish construction industry and assistance for Polish construction companies in getting contracts in international markets. At present, the organisation consists of 20 Polish enterprises whose total sales in 2015 equalled PLN 10.5 billion. In the development strategy for the organisation, Belarus has been defined as one of the main and prospective markets.

In the photo: Jan Mikołuszko, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Unibep SA, who signed the memorandum on behalf of the Company