Scomi Engineering Bhd has struck a deal with Engineering Projects (India) Ltd (EPI) to jointly venture into monorail projects in fast-urbanising Indian cities and in South Asia region.
Scomi Engineering, a subsidiary of Scomi Group Bhd, signed a memorandum of understanding with EPI, a leading investment arm of the Indian government.
“Together we will look at public transportation projects on the PPP (Private-Public Partnership) model in other Indian cities, currently we are looking at three cities. Besides India, EPI is also investing in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in this sector,” said Scomi Group’s chief executive officer Shah Hakim Zain.
“By 2011 we will try to crystallise at least one project,” he told Bernama after the signing ceremony in Delhi today.
“We are pleased to collaborate with Scomi as our preferred partner to explore business opportunities in the transportation segment,” said EPI chairman and managing director S.P.S. Bakshi.
The ceremony was presided over by India’s Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.
It is a strategic move for Scomi, which is steadily anchoring itself in India”s growing public transport infrastructure sector, after securing the country’s first monorail project in Mumbai.
“EPI is a big infrastructure company, they can do the financing and Scomi can do the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) part,” said Shah Hakim.
Scomi is currently working with its Indian partner Larsen & Tourbro (L&T) to build the 19.5-kilometre monorail project estimated at RM1.85 billion.
On the other hand, EPI has an impeccable track record, executing over 480 multi-disciplinary projects in India plus another 30 ventures in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yugoslavia, Maldives, Bhutan and Thailand.
