F4 - 流星 雨
JAPAN READY TO HELP M T TO BUY CAR SUBWAY.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has signed a contract with a Japanese company yesterday for the purchase of 325 subway cars and announced that the deal would be funded in part by a loan of 126 million from the Government of Japan.
Passenger cars, which should start arriving in December 1983 and should all be in service in 1985, will be the first purchase for the New York subway system of a foreign manufacturer They will replace the IRT cars that are 25 to 35 years.
The negotiated price of every new car was 844 500, for a total purchase price of 274 462 500 The price is subject to the cost of metal at the time of construction.
Richard Ravitch, chairman of M T has said that Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. was selected to build the cars, which are described as resistant to graffiti for several reasons, including price, quality, delivery date and funding.
We were encouraged by the will of a foreign manufacturer and a foreign government to grant us a credit, M. Ravitch said at a news conference during which he was surrounded by officials and Kawasaki Nissho- Iwai American Corporation, the commercial company which negotiated the agreement.
Other US cities like Philadelphia and Atlanta, bought subway cars of foreign manufacturers, but the MT An agreement represents the first time a foreign government helped fund such a purchase.
The Export-Import Bank of Japan, a government institution, will lend money in yen at Nissho-Iwai, which in turn give credit MTA dollars over the next eight years, the MTA will repay the loan in dollars, which will be converted to yen by Nissho Iwai-before reimbursing the Japanese bank.
Under the contract, the MTA must pay a fee of 40400 a car in Nissho Iwai-to assume the risk of fluctuations in the yen According to Steven Polan, Special Advisor to the MTA the additional payment will result in an effective interest rate of 25 December percent, better than the authority could obtain by borrowing on the bond markets in the country the MTA has never borrowed on the municipal bond market and, therefore, it was unclear yesterday what the interest rate it would have paid if it had taken this course.
Loans from foreign governments in the past have helped private US companies fund these large purchases in aircraft and ships, but was never used in public transport, according to M. Polan The new agreement was certain to intensify the controversy over the purchase of foreign goods to large-scale unemployment period the US Ravitch critical Anticipates.
Yesterday, before the Kawasaki case was announced, James L Emery, Geneseo Republican who is the minority leader of the State Assembly, issued a letter to M. Ravitch insisting that all cars purchased by the MTA are made in the United States, preferably in upstate New York.
In its announcement yesterday, M. Ravitch apparently anticipated this criticism instead of a press release, three-page explanation of the reasons why singlespace the MTA decided a foreign manufacturer was distributed at the news conference, which took place at the authority headquaters at 347 Madison Avenue.
M. Ravitch said that only a US company, the Budd Company of Troy contract, Michigan had competed for the underground car We believe that the agreement with Kawasaki represents the public in New York the best opportunity, said M. Ravitch.
The MTA chairman also said that 43 percent of the equipment in new cars - including couplings, brakes and traction motors - will be built in this country, if possible, he added, new businesses York will be used as subcontractors no federal funds involved.
The American coins will be shipped to Japan where Kawasaki will assemble vehicles They will then be returned to the United States and subject to an import tax of 5 percent import tax will help your federal government, said Shunro Mori, president of Nissho- Iwai.
In addition to the Japanese funding, the cars will be paid by national and local contributions, the money raised by the M T A by the sale of bonds and the sale of subway cars to private companies for tax benefits.
Since there is no federal money involved in the case, the Buy America provisions of the federal law - that require the use of American suppliers -DO NOT apply.
The new cars, M. Ravitch said, will be very much like the cars now in service on the IRT We did not want to have a lot of gadgets, widgets and flattery, M. Ravitch said they will be built for reliability, service and comfort.
The cars, however, be different in two respects, they are air-conditioned and will have a stainless steel exterior resistant to graffiti.
JAPAN READY TO HELP million loan, Japan, help.