WATER MANAGEMENT

A South Korean firm scored the highest among six companies selected yesterday to bid for the country's 324 billion baht in water management and flood prevention projects.

Deputy Prime Minister Plodprasop Suraswadi identified the qualified contenders as Korea Water Resources Corp (K Water), ITD Power China, Summit SUT Joint Venture, Team Thailand Joint Venture, Japan-Thailand Joint Venture and Loxley Joint Venture.

Mr Plodprasop is the chairman of the government's Water Management and Flood Prevention Commission.

Two other firms, China CAMC Engineer Co and TKC Global Consortium, did not make it past the conceptual planning stage to the technical and financial bidding stage.

The six approved contenders must file their technical bids and quotations by March 15.

K Water, the South Korean firm, scored well with its proposal to apply satellite technology to ensure project completion on schedule, a source said. It also impressed the commission by saying it had deployed at least 200 hydraulic engineers and at least 2,000 workers in Thailand for six months to work out its conceptual plan.

The South Korean company said its reservoirs, floodways and city planning would be integrated in upstream, midstream and downstream systems. It has also proposed building sea barriers.

ITD Power China landed the second highest score.

The firm says it would be ready to start construction at once as it has the funds, machinery and more than 100,000 workers nationwide.

The group includes Thailand's biggest construction giant Italian-Thai Development Plc, as well Panya Consultants, Power Construction Corporation of China, China International Water and Power Corporation, and China Gezhouba Group. However, the joint venture's proposed construction technique was not considered outstanding, preventing it from bagging the top spot among the qualified candidates.

K Water and ITD Power China are qualified to bid for all 10 project packages, and the government is confident they will be able to complete all of them.