By Aye Yamone

A carriage repair workshop will be built at a cost of US$100 million for the maintenance of imported passenger rail coaches, said Dr Maung Maung Thwin, the general manager of Myanma Railways (MR).

will carry out repair and maintenance operations for air-conditioning, provide cleaning services, and heavy equipment repair, among other things, for carriages plying on the Yangon-Mandalay railway section and the Yangon circular railway network. The rail coaches will be imported from Japan.

“For now, we have called for bids, and the process has not ended yet. The deadline for filing tenders is 18 October. The workshop will be developed on MR-owned land. Many Japanese companies are expected to participate in the bidding. The workshop’s construction is estimated to cost around $100 million,” said U Maung Maung Thwin.

Tenders were invited for the construction of the workshop in July. Four firms have obtained Expression of Interest forms in the past two months.

As per the tender rules, only wholly-owned Japanese companies or joint ventures with Japanese companies can participate in the bidding.

“The project will be implemented under an ODA loan. The construction time is estimated to be three years. However, it will depend on the starting date. We will conduct a tender screening and evaluation process. As we are implementing the project with Japan, it will take some time,” said U Maung Maung Thwin.

The workshop will be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s Official Development Assistance (ODA). The project is slated to take three years to complete, and construction work is likely to start in 2020.

The coach repair workshop will be developed on 14 acres of land owned by the MR in the Ywathagyi station compound. (Translated by Ei Myat Mon)