Hyundai allowed to bid for Brazil rail project: report
(AFP) Nov 7, 2012
SAO PAULO Brazil has cleared the way for South Korean industrial giant Hyundai to put in a construction bid for a bullet train to link Rio with Sao Paulo and Campinas, according to a report Wednesday.
Economic daily Valor said the federal government has agreed to lower a requirement for prospective bidders: instead of requiring a ten year record of operating high-speed trains without accident, bidders would only need five.
Hyundai, which has only eight-and-a-half years of high-speed train experience, had pushed for the change.
"We are going to show flexibility, as we must recognize that the South Korean group developed a technology, operated it and never had any accident," Valor quoted Bernardo Figueiredo, president of the agency running the country's transport system, as saying.
"There is no point in excluding such an important operator," Figueireido said from the southern city of Porto Alegre.
