The Ministry of Transportation and Communications decided to end talks with the BES Engineering Corp (中華工程) on a proposed airport-rail project, Vice Minister Tsai Duei (蔡堆) said yesterday.
"With concerns over some technical issues ... we expect it would have been difficult to hammer out a deal by May 12 and agreed to terminate our talks today," Tsai said at a press conference.
The problems include how to connect the line to the Taipei MRT system and drafting a new route plan some five years after the original blueprints were drawn.
BES Engineering, the nation's largest public works company, was in talks with the government for the contract to build a 36.9km mass rapid transit line connecting Taipei City and the CKS International Airport.
The ministry granted priority negotiating rights to BES Engineering on Dec. 31 last year after the original builder -- Evertransit International Co (長生開發), which beat out BES Engineering to obtain the priority rights in May 1998 -- failed to pay the ministry for the rights to the project.
BES Engineering paid a deposit of NT$100 million to the ministry on Jan. 28 and started to negotiate terms with the ministry's Bureau of Taiwan High Speed Rail on March 27.
But the company quickly encountered technical difficulties with its original proposal as a result of infrastructure changes along the proposed route over the past five years, Tsai said.
BES senior vice president Shen Hwa-yeang (沈華養) wasn't available for comment yesterday.
Tsai said the ministry will not give up on the project and will find a new contractor to build the system, possibly by the end of the year.
In addition, the ministry will study the feasibility of adding a 16km extension to the north-south Taiwan high-speed rail system, from Ching-pu station to the CKS International Airport, or turning an existing 20km rail line between Linkou and Taoyuan City into an MRT line connecting the airport to Taipei, Tsai said.
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