Three companies expressed interest in the tender for the Cyprus-Greece ferry connection.

These are the companies SCANDRO HOLDING LTD, whose offer amounts to 15,594,000 euros, N.Y. BUSINESS TIES LTD whose offer amounted to 14,100,000 euros and KIARA NAFTIKI ETAIRIA (SeaJets Group) which offered 16,500,000 euros.

It is pointed out that the line is subsidized with 5.5 million euros per year for three years (total 16.5 million euros). In his statements to the Cypriot media, the competent Undersecretary of Shipping, Vassilis Dimitriadis, estimated that by the end of February there will be an official announcement for the award of the tender.

Expressing satisfaction for the fact that there was interest, Mr. Dimitriadis said that “we do not celebrate, but we consider it as an important step before the last, which is the evaluation and award of the offer”.

“The great and painstaking effort we made as a team of the Ministry of State paid off, as we managed to attract the interest of economic operators in a competition, the peculiarities of which made the project very difficult,” he added.

He attributed the attraction of carriers to the renegotiation of the terms with the European Commission and the redesign of the tender document.

At the beginning of next week, he stressed, the submitted bids will be submitted to the Evaluation Committee, which was appointed in accordance with the provisions of the relevant legislation, for evaluation, in order to award the bid as soon as possible.

The award is expected to take place at the end of February, beginning of March, and according to the Deputy Minister of Shipping, maritime passenger transport will begin in either April or May.

It is noted that it is left to the transporter to be selected, whether it will use the port of Limassol or Larnaca.

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