During Question Time in the national parliament on Tuesday, Croatian Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Radimir Cacic announced that the completion of the construction of a new plant within the thermal power station in Plomin, Istria, would be in 2016 or most probably in 2017.
"This is the biggest investment in the history of this country," the deputy prime minister said answering a question from the ethnic Bosniak deputy Nedzad Hodzic about a pace of the construction of the Plomin C facility.
According to Cacic, the total investment is estimated at one billion euros.
Until the end of this month, four bidders would be short-listed among seven bidders that were selected after as many as 70 companies sent their bids, according to the minister's answer.
Cacic said that one of the main factors was terms of payment in order to reduce the import by two and a half times.
By mid-March 2013, the best bidder will be chosen among those four short-listed companies and the signing of the agreement is due to be on 1 April 2013, Cacic said.
"Three years (for construction) is the lower limit and five years is upper limit, and the chosen partner can start working in mid 2013," he said adding that he expected the completion of the construction in 2016 or 2017.
Branko Bacic of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) asked Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic what he was planning to do to prevent the implementation of the sea and infrastructure ministry's austerity plan that envisages the cancellation of some ferry services between the mainland and islands as of 1 October.
"Anything that means the life for local people will not be cancelled," Milanovic answered adding that only savings would be made.
