As soon as the Ten-Year Plan began, the Bulgarian government grew busy once more. The broad framework had been set, but there was still a heap of subprojects—those needing discussion had to be discussed, and those needing approval had to be approved.
What worried the cabinet most now was the highway construction bidding conference. It involved an investment of tens of billions of lev; worldwide, the number of consortiums capable of bidding could be counted on one hand. It would be terribly awkward if no one came.
Konstantin asked with concern, "How is it going? How many consortiums have registered?"
Transport Minister Besir Ivanov thought for a moment before saying, "So far, only two consortiums have registered!"
Hearing this result, Konstantin breathed a sigh of relief. As long as someone had registered, it was fine. There were few with the strength for this sort of long-term investment to begin with.
After all, it meant more than a decade of pure investment, with no hope of recouping the costs for the next twenty or thirty years. Capitalists chased profit—how could they possibly come swarming in?
Konstantin asked, "Which two consortiums?"
Besir Ivanov shook his head. "They aren't international consortiums. Both were temporary groups formed by domestic capitalists. United Bank and Royal Bank took the lead, gathering a group of people to participate in this bidding!"
Upon hearing that domestic capitalists had joined forces, Konstantin could more or less guess the outcome. Other than these two banks, no other capitalists had such pulling power, much less such financial strength.
Although National Bank also called itself one of the nation's three major banks, in terms of financial strength, it had long since been left far behind by those two banks.
Even though the government deposited all its fiscal funds in National Bank, it