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Three bidders have been shortlisted for the development of the Liège Tramway public private partnership (PPP) project in Belgium.

The Walloon Government launched the tender process in June and now it has selected three consortia:

• Mobiliège consortium, composed by Alstom Transport, BAM Group and pension fund PGGM.
• Tramardent, formed by CAF, Colas and DIF.
• Legiaexpress, made up Skoda, Vinci, CFE (where Vinci holds 47% of the capital) and the investment company Meridiam.

Mobiliège was selected in December 2014 to develop the project, but the Walloon Government re-launched the process after problems with treatment of the budget in the national accounts were raised by Eurostat. It was Eurostat's opinion that the investment for the project should go directly to government's balance sheet and in fact not to be split in several years during the life of the concession. 

The project includes the construction of 12 km tramway between the Standard Liege Stadium and the northern district Coronmeuse, as well as the total renovation of the road network. This route could be extended to Jemeppe and / or Herstal, 18 km maximum in total, as part of a later contract. The project would be operated by a fleet of about 19 trams.

The PPP rail project will be developed on design, build, finance and maintenance (DBFM) basis. The concession contract will have a maintenance period of 27 years.

The total project investment is estimated at US$522 million.

The development of the project had already started with the following investment realized: €15.4 million in studies, €3.3 million in land acquisitions and 14.3 million in displacing utilities and existing infrastructure.