Our impact
Netcity, Romania
Background
Following the liberalisation of the Romanian economy, telecommunications operators expanded rapidly by rolling out aerial fibre optics spanning from buildings to electric posts, to lamp posts across Bucharest. The result was a significant fibre coverage but at the cost of a fire hazard, interference with transportation networks, and visually very unappealing. To reduce the incidence of these aerial cables and improve the cityscape, the city of Bucharest awarded in 2008 a 49-year concession agreement, granting an exclusivity to build a network of underground ducts.
Netcity is responsible of the deployment 5,500km of ducts in Bucharest, 1,700km of which were deployed by 2021. In December 2021, Meridiam acquired a 49% stake in Netcity to speed up roll-out. Meridiam’s expertise will enable the Project Company to accelerate the construction and realise the original critical objectives of the Project. As part of this Meridiam-led rollout, Netcity aims to deploy between 2022 and 2025 an additional network of 1,725 km of ducts in Bucharest.
Stage:
> Under construction
ESG/SDG Key Facts
An SDG Roadmap is currently being developed to build on the wider impact of the project. The Project Company has also taken several initiatives to make ESG a core element of how it does business:
• Automation of checks on ESG KPIs
• Internal and external communication on ESG goals
• Consolidation of the company ESG policies: the development of an ESG Strategy and HR Policy, and the update of the whistleblowing policy and the Code of business conduct are ongoing.
> Learn more from the press release
Image source : Depositphotos_207345772_XL @Shuterstock