The contract for granting the concession of Bulgaria's Trakiya highway to a Portuguese consortium will be signed today, it appeared Monday after weeks of speculations on the exact date. Bulgaria's Regional Development Minister Valentin Tserovski and the executive directors of "Trakiya Highway AD" Emil Kotsev and Kosta Ferreira will place their signatures on the contract on Tuesday at 2.30 p.m. The signing ceremony will be attended by Bulgaria's Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg as well as by Portuguese officials and EC chief representative to Sofia Dimitris Kourkoulas.

In December the government decided to grant the 35-year concession of the south highway to the "Trakiya Highway AD", which is to complete the construction and rehabilitate the main traffic road.

MPs claimed that the consortium had shareholders closely related to Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg and cabinet ministers, even hinting that two of the premier's sons had interests in the major deal. The government press office denied the statements. A special committee was established to probe into the concession.

The cost of the project is estimated at EUR 720 M, with EUR 590 M planned investments till end 2007 and another EUR 125 M till end 2009.