El Salvador confirms awarding of US$400mn Los Chorros construction contract

El Salvador’s government confirmed it has awarded the construction contract for the US$400mn Los Chorros highway to South Korean company Dongbu Corp, as BNamericas reported at the end of March.

“We have awarded the construction of the project. The company was notified before the Easter holidays,” said public works and transport minister Romeo Rodríguez (in photo) in an interview aired on Youtube.

Seoul-based Dongbu was reportedly the only bidder.

Rodríguez said that under the terms of a loan granted by Korea Eximbank, along with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei), the government was required to pick a Korean company for the works.

“Korea Eximbank lent US$410mn along with Cabei, at 40 years with a 0.15% interest rate and 10-year grace period. It was the most favorable loan that our country has been granted, and that came with certain conditions like [choosing] Korean companies for this project,” he said. “The company is called Dongbu, and it will make a US$372mn investment to develop the biggest infrastructure works in El Salvador’s history.” 

According to the minister, talks with the company will take place this week to start construction, which will take approximately three years.

The supervision contract, however, has still not been awarded and as of Monday, bids had yet to be opened despite it being nearly three months since they were submitted, BNamericas learned from a source close to the process.

The project involves building a viaduct and expanding the Chorros section of highway CA01W to eight lanes on a 15km stretch in the municipalities of Santa Tecla, Colón and San Juan Opico in La Libertad department. The work is divided into three sections although construction is due to be carried out under a single contract.

The project is part of the government's western corridor master plan.