Sofia Municipality has commissioned the construction of the first new overpass in the congested Bulgarian capital for a total of BGN 8.9 M.

The contract for the overpass in the Mladost Quarter was signed on September 20, 2010. The company selected to carry out the project is the Bulgarian infrastructure firm Trace Group Hold Jsc.

The two-level intersection of three major boulevards in the Mladost Quarter, one of the most populous sectors of the Bulgarian capital, the Alexander Malinov Blvd, the Andrey Lyapchev Blvd, and the Andrey Saharov Blvd, is supposed to relieve the jammed traffic in the southern parts of Sofia, including the road leading to the Sofia Business Park located in Mladost 4.

The news about the signing of the contract became clear from a corporate announcement of the Trace Hold Group published through the Bulgarian Stock Exchange.

Trace Hold together with a partner company, Via Plan EOOD, are supposed to complete the overpass in Mladost within 360 days.

The entire cost of BGN 8.857 M will be paid by the Sofia Municipality from its own budget.

At the end of August, Trace Group won tenders for a total of BGN 21.6 M funded under the EU Regional Development Program for the rehabilitation of roads in the southern Districts of Kardzhali, Plovdiv, and Haskovo. The previous month it got a contract under the same program for improving the infrastructure of the Lovech Municipality in Northern Bulgaria.

At present, Trace Hold Group is applying, together with partner firms, in several multi-million road infrastructure tenders. It is also constructing Lot 2 of the Trakiya Highway and the extension of Line 1 of the Sofia Metro from the Mladost 1 Quarter to the Tsarigradsko Shose Blvd.

In the first half of 2010, Trace Hold Group, whose CEO is Nikolay Mihaylov, registered a double turnover of BGN 93.4 M, and a net profit of BGN 3.6 M. In the same period of 2009, it suffered a BGN 1 M loss. The company's market capitalization at present is BGN 110 M.

As the Bulgarian capital Sofia grew tremendously in population in the past 15 years, its streets became increasingly congested. The Sofia Municipality has played around with plans to relieve the situation.

One measure has provided for going for the construction of several overpasses at key road junctions and crossroads around the city. However, the fate of all of these projects is unclear as senior local officials have stated a number of times that the municipality will not have the money to fund this construction.

It is still unclear whether and when the Sofia Municipality will go ahead to commission the construction of further overpasses, and which ones, if not all of them, will get the necessary funding.