Board member and
representative of the
company owners
In 2012 the company completed its first project in Macedonia
Raicommerce Construction, a Bulgaria—based company whose main line of business is the construction of water mains and sewerage, has a track record of over 330 successful projects. Since it was set up in 1991, the company has built over 350,000 metres of water mains and over 50,000 metres of sewerage in various parts of the country. Raicommerce Construction has a staff of nearly 400 highly qualified employees and operates a large fleet of machines, including horizontal drilling equipment. Its annual turnover exceeds 20 million euro. Raicommerce Construction’s operations are certified under the ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004 and OHSAS 18001:2007 quality standards. The company is a member of the Bulgarian Water Association, the Bulgarian Association for Trenchless Technologies, Bulgarian Utility Contractors Association, and the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, among others.
What major projects is Raicommerce Construction currently implementing?
Since 2003 Raicommerce Construction has been the main partner of Sofia’s water supply and sewerage company Sofiyska Voda, a unit of Veolia Water. We are in charge of the maintenance of 40% of the capital city’s water supply and sewer network. Over the past ten years, our teams have fixed more than 45,000 problems on the city’s territory. We make sure that every day over 800,000 people can use the water supply services of Sofia. In 2013, in a consortium with other leading companies, we launched in the town of Kostinbrod a project worth a total of nearly 50 million euro which includes the construction of 43 km of sewerage, 40 km of water mains and 7 km of riverbed works. Another major project, worth nearly 11 million euro, that we are due to complete in 2014 envisages the construction of a water cycle in the town of Byala Slatina. It involves the construction of 12 km of sewerage network, 10 km of water mains and a waste water treatment plant. Back in 1995 we were first in Bulgaria to employ trenchless directional drilling – a technology via which the pipes in a 100-metre street can be replaced without digging, which cuts costs, time, and noise and air pollution, and does not interrupt traffic. So far, we have built over 200,000 metres of water mains using trenchless technology, and in 2004 we even published a manual to share our experience.
In 2012 Raicommerce Construction completed its first project in Macedonia. Are you considering expanding to other countries in SEE?
Yes, we have the ambitious goal to carry out projects on the territory of other countries in SEE, in particular in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia, where, I believe, the social and economic situation is not so different from the one in Bulgaria.
Which are the main challenges facing construction companies in the water and sewerage sector in SEE?
The problems that we encounter are stemming from insufficient financing in the water and sewerage sector, as well as the unclear ownership of the networks and facilities. Politicians prefer investments in the construction of visible elements of urban infrastructure areas such as roads, bridges and parks. These challenges, however, could be overcome through better cooperation between the state institutions and organisations with the representatives of the private business such as public private partnerships and concessions.