Construction of the new parliament, expected to cost Bt12 billion and located in Dusit district, was scheduled for completion in November 2015 under the original contract. However, the deadline for construction has been extended several times.

The project was now due to be completed in the middle of 2019, Pakpoom said.

“We should have realised gains of about Bt4 billion a year from the project over the past three years. But we only partially booked about Bt1 billion last year,” he said.

Last year, Stec posted Bt18.33 billion in revenue, a 15-per-cent drop year-on-year.

Pakpoom said the delay in the new parliament was caused by several factors – a delay in the government making land available, and a delay in the company’s digging as a result of the government not making a place available to dump dug up earth. He said the project also had shortcomings in IT, security, its audio and video system, and insufficient area for car-parking. Under the current design, underground car parking would be available for 2,000 cars for an estimated 12,000 regular visitors a day.

The Stec president said if the government decided to build another carpark for 4,000 cars – which would be three-storeys underground and in the building compound – and was built in parallel, it would be completed at the same time as the parliament.

Pakpoom said the interior design, which requires extensive use of large teakwood – procured from the Forest Industry Organisation – for decoration might also cause delays. The company would inform the interior designers if the teak required could be procured.

Currently, the project was about 22 per cent completed and expected to reach 30 per cent by the end of this year.

Pakpoom said the company’s revenue this year was likely to match last year since bidding was yet to begin on the government’s mega-investment project worth more than Bt10 billion.

In the second half of the year, he said the company expected to realise revenue from existing projects such as the double-track railway (Chachoengsao-Klong 19-Kaeng Khoi), which would book revenue of Bt1.5 billion to Bt2 billion, and power plant projects.

“This year, Stec will get a combined Bt4 billion to Bt5 billion from new jobs, well short of its target of Bt20 billion,” Pakpoom said.

With a backlog of Bt50 billion, he said about Bt8 billion was revenue waiting to be realised from the new parliament project and another Bt8 billion was from the project to double railway tracks.

He said the company had tried to maintain an equal portion of government and private sector projects to ensure its margin remained high. The company now has a gross margin of around 8-9 per cent and a 6-7 per cent net profit margin, which was better than the average of rival contractors.

Stec’s revenue breakdown is from three major businesses – power, infrastructure, and buildings – all contributing equally.

Pakpoom expected the company would secure more work by winning the bidding for government infrastructure projects after this year. It has picked up bidding documents for the Orange Line (Cultural Centre to Min Buri), Yellow Line (Lat Phrao to Samrong), and Pink Line (Khae Rai to Min Buri).

Of the other projects that will likely open for bidding this year, he said the company expected to win about three to four contracts for each motorway project. It will also participate in the bidding for four routes of the dual-track inter-city rail projects.