Kawasaki wins rapid transit bid

Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd yesterday won its bid to manufacture 321 rapid transit passenger cars for Taipei at the price of NT$15.22 billion, beating competitors Germany's Siemens AG and Canada's Bombardier, Taipei City Government's Department of Rapid Transit Systems announced.

Kawasaki and the department estimated that the cars would be ready between April 2007 and the end of 2008.

Frank Fan (范良鏽), the department's commissioner, said that the bidding competition had been particularly fierce.

As Kawasaki's tender was only 80.22 percent of the budgeted amount set by the Department of Rapid Transit Systems, Fan said he was pleased with the price that Kawasaki offered.

The competition began with five companies, but only Kawa-saki, Germany's Siemens and Canada's Bombardier survived to enter the final stage of the bidding process and offered price proposals. South Korea's biggest railcar maker, Rotem Co, and Spain's CAF were eliminated before the final negotiations.

"I am very happy and satisfied with the results. We will make our best effort in manufacturing the rapid transit cars," said Akira Hattori, Kawasaki's general manager of the Marketing and Sales Division.

According to Steven Lee (李文才), the department's director of system-wide electrical and mechanical projects, regulations laid out by the Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs required that Kawasaki assemble at least 50 percent of its passenger cars in Taiwan.

Hattori confirmed that Kawa-saki would be working with Taiwanese companies, but said his company had yet to determine which firms would be be chosen as Kawasaki's partners. Lee explained that Kawasaki's final quote included roughly NT$1.9 billion to be spent in Taiwan.

Lee said that the rapid-transit department would be working closely with Kawasaki, saying that all plans would have to be approved by the department before execution.

The department will also perform extensive testing on the cars Kawasaki manufactured.

According to Hattori, Kawasaki has about 100 years of experience building rapid-transit passenger cars and has built subway cars for New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong and Panama. He said that he is pleased to be working with Taipei this time.

The contract will be signed within a month, Lee said.

Yesterday's announcement was made despite complaints from Rotem that the Department of Rapid Transit Systems had been unfair in conducting the bidding process.

A statement issued by the Department of Rapid Transit Systems said that following Taiwan's Procurement Law (採購法), complaints regarding the bid, which was announced on June 11, should have been made by June 21. Rotem had failed to file a formal complaint by this date.

The Department of Rapid Transit stressed that it had diligently abided by the stipulations of the Procurement Law and strove to ensure fair competition in the bidding process.