Korea Expressway Corporation has signed a main contract for a 186 billion won road operation and maintenance (O&M) project in Türkiye. The deal is the largest overseas road O&M project the corporation has won to date, with public financing support from the Export-Import Bank of Korea and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-SURE) playing a decisive role.
Korea Expressway Corporation said Thursday that it signed the main contracts for the Kınalı-Malkara highway O&M project and the Malkara-Çanakkale rehabilitation project in Istanbul, Türkiye, on Wednesday local time.
The Kınalı-Malkara highway is part of the section connecting Istanbul and Çanakkale, a public-private partnership project with a total project cost of 2.6 trillion won. It will be built as a 106-kilometer, six-lane two-way road. Korea Expressway Corporation will provide pre-operation consulting during the construction period and, after the highway opens in 2029, will undertake the O&M project (approximately 135 billion won) jointly with local company Rimak for 10 years. For the Malkara-Çanakkale section, it will carry out a rehabilitation project (approximately 51 billion won) covering 89 kilometers (six lanes) from this year through 2039.
The contract was backed by the technical confidence of the project's client, the Turkish road authority, along with strategic support from public financing institutions. Eximbank led the financing arrangement from the early stages of the project, and the additional participation of K-SURE led to an expansion of the contract scale.
With this contract, Korea Expressway Corporation's cumulative order value in Türkiye has risen to approximately 350 billion won. Following the Nakkaş-Başakşehir highway O&M project in 2024, the corporation has secured its second O&M project in the country, bringing its push into the European market within sight.
"This is the fruit of cooperation, with an infrastructure public enterprise and public financing institutions joining forces to produce tangible results in overseas markets," said Lee Sang-jae, acting CEO of Korea Expressway Corporation. "We aim to win 1,000 kilometers of overseas road O&M projects by 2030, and we will continue participating in large projects."
