East Nippon Expressway Co. Ltd. entered a public-private partnership project of road concession in India. The Japanese expressway operator acquired 9% share at 350 million yen of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) wholly-owned by ITNL, India’s largest road PPP service supplier, which is now in charge of expansion works of existing roads in central India. This will be the first overseas business involvement by Japanese expressway companies.

The SPV has been appointed as a 20-year concessionaire of a 101.3km section of the national highway No.9 connecting Pune and Sholapur, which is slated to open in 2014.

East Nippon Expressway has offered knowledge and know-hows of road development and operation to the vehicle since last month with an attempt to strengthen partnership with ITNL. The company aims to accumulate experiences through the trials in India and to start a full-scale business later on collaborating with Japan Expressway International Co., a subsidiary of Japan’s four expressway companies. (2014/03/27)