Bulgaria’s Transport Minister Alexander Tsvetkov has promised to improve the situation with a problematic new terminal at the Port of Burgas.

Burgas Port workers staged a protest rally over the week because the port company borrowed a huge sum to build Terminal 2A which was supposed to be used primarily for supplies for the once giant steel-maker Kremikovtzi. With Kremikovtzi now bankrupt, however, the Port of Burgas is repaying the debt without generating any revenue from the terminal.

Transport Minister Tsvetkov has promised on Friday in the city of Varna that Terminal 2A of the Burgas Port would receive a permit from the State Agency for Supervision of Construction by March 2010.

The new terminal was completed in April 2006 and even though very little activity has been going on there as Kremikovtzi got into a crisis, it has been operating, paradoxically, in a semi-legal regime, i.e. without an actual permit but with 72-hour test permits which have been renewed constantly.

However, once it is granted a permit, it will be used for processing freight deliveries for companies other than Kremikovtzi, thus becoming potentially profitable.

The General Plan for the Development of the Port of Burgas was drafted in 1996 envisaging the construction of Terminal 2A. Bulgaria received a load from the Japanese government for realizing the project in 1998. The total amount of the loan granted to the Bulgarian government, which then granted it to the Port of Burgas, was BGN 268 M.

The part of the loan spent on infrastructure construction will be repaid by 2028, and the money spent on consulting services will be paid back by 2038.

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