Good morning to you all. Thanks for joining us this morning. Before you all head off on holiday, a few photographs to get started. Let's have the first one. This is the earlier one with Gatwick Airport, an aerial view of Gatwick. Cue the photographs, the aerial view of Gatwick, the cover page. Anyway, here we're in Belgrade Airport, the airport with Nicolas Sarkozy. We received the French president two weeks ago, and we're able to see that the French president speaks Serbian fluently. Free flow lanes, Tournan interchange that is accessible, and it serves not just to the free-flow toll passengers, but also on the Ulys free scheme by reading the car registration plates can invoice you directly even if you don't have a Telepass, as long as you've provided your bank details.
This is a fine management contract for free-flow transactions, customer service on the M50 Dublin Ring Road. Very busy stretch of road, about 45,000 vehicles per day. For a local partner, for us, it's an 11-year contract amounting to some EUR 373 million per service with IT here. This is an unusual photograph of VINCI Energies. It's a new driver assistance scheme for these incredible cog and rack railways in Switzerland. A pilot has been operating, as you know, since 1889. This rack railway, very steep gradient, up to 48%. That's about 30 degrees for those of you who have some knowledge of trigonometry. That's a very steep gradient. Next slide is an artist's view of a fine contract at $2.7 billion for the design and build of 27 light rail in Ottawa, teaming up with our U.S. partner, Kiewit, going to involve both Eurovia and VINCI Construction.
That's very good news. Next slide is a view of the well that will be the intersection of lines 14 and 15 of the Grand Paris Express, very close to the Orsay Institute south of Paris. In one direction, you have line 15 and the other line 14. In the middle, the Vitry station. The final shot is an artist's view of our new headquarters, entrusted to VINCI Immobilier, of course, and that's to be inaugurated during the course of 2021. This is an actual photograph taken by Maria Melia Folch, who doesn't just have accounting talents, but also takes some fine photographs. This one dates back to last May. It's progressing well. There are another five stories that have been added. It's entering full-scale engineering. This summarizes well what we've achieved during the half.
As per usual, I will give the introduction, followed by Christian, who'll give you the details on the financials, and a few words on the outlook for 2019. First half of 2019, we can note, of course, strong growth in business, up 10%, and that VINCI Airports continues to benefit from good momentum in passenger traffic. VINCI Autoroutes has had traffic levels strongly impacted by various events. More about that later, nevertheless, has stabilized its traffic levels at the end of H1. In contracting, sustained organic growth across businesses and impact of the many acquisitions made in 2018. Not shown on this slide is very good the free cash flow generation, of course, Christian will tell you more about that in due course. Geographically, all our European positions are up well. Africa, as we indicated, has turned the corner, is up significantly.
That's good news because as you know, Africa historically has generated greater satisfaction on average than other countries in terms of construction. North America up hugely, but of course, that's the impact of the two major deals in 2018 at VINCI Energies and Eurovia. Then Oceania, Middle East, Asia, in fact made up of Middle East and Oceania are well at the end of a few major projects in Hong Kong, which all in all lead to a slight cyclical downturn in the area. Going into detail, Autoroutes highways broadly stable, slight downturn 0.4% for cars, plus 2% for trucks. It's become hugely complicated to make half to half comparisons. There are calendar effects, weather effects, and there are various social movements of unrest, not just the yellow vests, but you'll recall last year we had farming demonstrations that disrupted some on the ASF network during the first half.
There was the positive impact of French railways that brought some additional traffic to the motorway. It's very difficult for us to make comparisons, and I have to say that the fact that we end the half with basically traffic that is flat is, for us, good news. Big mobilization at VINCI Autoroutes in the summer holidays for the service area, an opportunity for about 1,500 of our employees on a volunteer basis to rally to take part in events in the service areas as people head for holidays. Ulys 30, which offers a 30% discount for day-to-day users, commuters who commute over 20 times a month from home to work. About 40,000 passes badge given, actually rather, sold to our customers at this stage.
New trial of a Peugeot autonomous vehicle, Peugeot 3008, that has, in full autonomy, driven at 130 kilometers per hour, not just through a toll gate, not going through the toll gate 130 Ks, but also in a construction works area. It was able to safely pull over on the hard shoulder. Working with Peugeot to develop vehicle autonomy. Focusing now on VINCI Airports. Strong activity at VINCI Airports that will have managed EUR 2.6 billion over six months, taking into account the consolidated, non-consolidated airports. Dynamic passenger traffic increase. You can see bottom right in this slide. Portugal 7.2%, Japan 6%, U.K. up 33%, Chile up 11.3%, France 10.1%. It's even a lot better if we just focus on Nantes and Cambodia, still reaching very high levels at 15.5% traffic growth on the hub.
This performance is as a result of the opening up of new routes and routes which for the first time are connecting our airports with capitals or larger global cities. For example, we've opened Lisbon, Doha in Qatar, Lisbon, Washington, D.C., Belgrade, Lyon, Osaka, London. There's good traffic with good retail business, good cost containment. The integration of Gatwick, Belgrade, and the airports from AWW allow us to deliver fine revenue growth and the results you see on the slide. In other concessions, not much to add. No new assets brought into our portfolio mix. You can see good growth. On the contracting front, order intake's up across all businesses. On a 12-month rolling basis, we are significantly up in the order intake for three contracting businesses.
It's in part due to recent integrations, also a resumption in organic growth because now we achieved organic growth of 4.6% at VINCI, over 10% at Eurovia, and 6.1% at VINCI Construction. Focusing on VINCI Energies, well, as I said, it's accelerating its organic growth and what's more, benefiting from the input of recent M&A deals. On a like for like basis, we achieve this increase of 8.8% in revenue. VINCI Energies now achieving significantly a large part of its business outside France, with 54% outside France, 46% in France. VINCI Energies is benefiting specifically of the good trends in energy infrastructure segment, but everything that revolves around information technology and communication. It's also improving its operating margin. That's the legendary discipline in order intake and good M&A deals. Always a good crop of acquisitions on the half. These are small or medium-sized.
Some 20 companies will have joined or will soon be joining VINCI Energies over the next few weeks. Eurovia, things are going very well. As I said, strong organic growth, particularly in France on this slide. Yeah, France, 12.8% organic growth. There's obviously a pre-electoral year impact, but we have every reason to believe that the party is set to continue, perhaps not the same growth levels into 2020. Given that the three levels of local authorities have regained some financial leeway, thanks in particular to additional income from transfer taxes, we're no longer in the period when municipalities were stretched in terms of gearing. They've returned to higher debt leeway. We have the impact of a pre-electoral year that's better than expected, and we expect that this could continue into next year.
Of course, Eurovia benefits from the acquisitions in 2018, and the taking over the industrial activities of Lane Plants & Paving in the U.S. allows us to double our size in road construction in the U.S. Let me remind you for the 25th time, I believe that for seasonal reasons that are obvious, the EBIT performance of the first half of the road business in no way represents the annual performance. What you need to know, however, at the end of the half, we have a performance that is superior, albeit negative than last year. This allows us to confidently expect improved EBIT margin of Eurovia full year. VINCI Construction, we still have our work cut out. There's a number of reasons to be satisfied at Soletanche Bachy, specialized civil engineering unit in Africa, as I said, where business is picking up stronger than expected.
In the U.K., that has been successfully restructured and is doing well in an environment in the U.K. that's very disrupted with the bankruptcy of Carillion, of Interserve, the difficulties faced by Kier and many others, and a pretty uncertain climate, notably regarding the future or not of HS2, the big project where there seems to be a major question mark whilst awaiting decisions of the new government, the new prime minister. Business sustained very acceptable in Central Europe, also in ASPAC. In ASPAC, New Zealand, we've just closed a great deal, about EUR 1 billion with a local partner, EUR 970 million. The large projects business that went through a low point that was looking for new deals, that's done. We just landed two major deals in North America.
One linked with Eurovia, which is the Ottawa Metro in partnership with Kiewit, our partner, and the other EUR 2.9 billion linked with our partners, ACS Dragados, for the Virginia Department of Transportation. However, conversely, oil and gas still remains very challenging both in volume and profit terms. France, paradoxically, there are regions where things are pretty strained in terms of number of projects available on the market. Very sharp drop in public infrastructure projects launched by municipalities. In Paris Region, that remains active civil engineering thanks to the Greater Paris project, but highly competitive, be it either for buildings or civil engineering.
More generally, without focus on any particular project, my sense is that relations are perhaps slightly more strained today than before between the principal, the owners, and contractors that Our difficulty to find agreements in delivering our contracts regarding the inevitable contract modifications that need to have revised prices or to develop riders to contracts. It's difficult to do that amicably, increasingly run of the river with our clients, and that, of course, has an impact on us because it postpones the possibility of booking our income, whereas by discipline we book the corresponding expenses. EBIT, VINCI Construction in no way reveals the final figure for 2019, which is set to be close to that booked in 2018. That is 2.8%, let me remind you, possibly slightly revised downwards. VINCI Real Estate. VINCI Immobilier is holding up.
Well, a year ago, we said that we probably reached the peak of the residential segment. That's happened. There's a slight dip of 6% in the number of homes booked. For positioning reasons, there's an increase in the value of these bookings. Commercial real estate doing well with offices, hotels planned, notably in the big cities in Paris and in Lyon. Lastly, as we said, Vinci Real Estate has finalized the purchase of the first 49% of Urbat that will complete our offering on more affordable housing in southern France in particular. Over to Christian.
I'll try not to repeat what Xavier has said on revenue to start off with. Our growth in the first half reflects extra revenue to the tune of EUR 2 billion, which is half uncollectible, and organic growth on that will account for EUR 1.2 billion, which is up 6% in terms of organic growth. Acquisitions contributed approximately an additional EUR 700 million from acquisitions made in 2018 that will have the full impact in 2019, namely the airports of Belgrade, LGW, and other airports. There's also PrimeLINE in Sineflieu, Melun, and Singapore, and other acquisitions this year in the first half of 2019, contributing half of the EUR 700 million basically, and this mainly concerns VINCI Energies, which has made approximately 20 small acquisitions, mainly in Europe, in France, and in Benelux. There's a currency impact, which is positive this year, which is a novelty.
The dollar is up. This produces a EUR 800 million account. Again, looking at geographical areas, next slide, France was robust with organic growth of almost 7%, representing approximately EUR 800 million with strong performance, as Xavier said, at Eurovia. Also, VINCI Construction in volume terms and VINCI Energies to a lesser extent. Real estate plus 20%, strong growth in corporate real estate. Xavier has referred to L'Archipel, our future headquarters, and residential property plus 13%. We have the production of new residential programs that have been launched, which are now entering the production phase. Things are moving ahead. Internationally, significant growth, EUR 1.2 billion, mainly due to external growth.
As I said earlier, looking at it per country, the strongest growth countries are Africa, +30%, impacted by the recessions in the previous year, North America, almost +7%, Europe with France +5%, Germany +7%, U.K. +4%, with a decline in Asia and Russia, with the completion of some major sites. Looking at results, I won't go repeat what Xavier said, but I can anticipate the question towards the impact of IFRS 16 on consolidation of liabilities financed through leasing. It's almost non-existent in Europe, but we look at the EBITDA, we'll be amortizing these assets. In terms of operating income, it's almost zero. Its overall impact is EUR 4 million, so very small indeed. What else? Look, growth at VINCI Autoroutes and VINCI Airports.
Margins at VINCI Autoroutes has improved due to good cost control, operating cost control, the fact that we have stable traffic, increase in revenue, plus 2.6%. FMX, given that heavy goods vehicles are up also, light vehicles down 0.4%. We had a seasonal impact that was favorable because the winter was very mild and also some insurance revenue. Looking at VINCI Airports, you can see a flattish margin due to dilution consolidation of new margins, whose margin is below the average margin for VINCI Airports, basically Belgrade and WW. Gatwick is in line with the average margin at VINCI Airports. VINCI Immobilier, margins down. There's a very strong seasonal factor in margins at VINCI Immobilier due to the fact that last year, the beginning of the year, we had a profit-sharing in a high-rise building in La Défense. That was a non-recurring, it was a windfall profit.
VINCI Energies margins up close to 6%. VINCI Energies has done quite well. Eurovia has a good margin, which is not representative in the first half, but which is up with positive contribution from France, which is usually not the case. Usually, in the first half, Eurovia entities are down because of fixed costs. This is not the case this year, and we have consolidated the North American and Canadian subsidiaries, which do not work during the winter. We are down overall, but less so than last year. VINCI Construction, well, Xavier has discussed this at length. Income statement, looking at the different items, everything's gone more or less in the same direction, +8.9% up on last year.
Looking at EBIT and current operating income with companies consolidated under the equity model and the impact of IFRS 16, well, we have more staff members who enjoy our profit-sharing schemes, in particular. Overseas, we have contribution from companies consolidating under the equity method, which are also improving due to a strong result in Japan. In the non-recurring items, well, there are very few non-recurring items, and there were not many last year. Looking at financial income and expense, it's down because we've increased the debt load. It's quite normal that we should be paying more interest expense. It's a combination of factors. We have reduced our borrowing rate for the corporate business, VINCI ASF and Cofiroute, quite significantly because our new bond issues were launched under exceptional terms in terms of coupons.
We have launched for our acquisitions in issues in U.S. dollars and the sterling at costs which clearly are higher than in euro. We have a volume effect, which is due to external growth and the consolidation of newly acquired companies, in particular, Gatwick. All this leads to a rise in interest expense to the tune of approximately EUR 30 million, which is not really significant given the debt load. Conversely, we have a negative impact due to the opening of the second tranche of LAMSAC, the ring road around Lima, which was commissioned in June 2018. From June 2018, we no longer have the interest expense reflecting this investment. It has a major impact, therefore, on the operating income to the tune of approximately EUR 20 million. That's what we can say on financial results. Tax is up, but not very much given the results.
I recall that the previous year, we benefited from the CICE, this is a tax credit, a non-taxable tax credit, which has been converted into a cost in social charges. We have to pay tax on this reduced social charge, which has a negative impact, of course, on the amount of tax paid by the group, with net income up in volume and per share by +4.5%. Now looking at cash flow. EBITDA was up strongly by 23%, there's an IFRS impact, which is significant. Excluding that, there's still a 17% rise in EBITDA, the IFRS impact is approximately EUR 250 million. The EBITDA margin is an additional 40 basis points, in particular, VINCI Autoroutes. In the contracting business, we have an increase of EBITDA, excluding IFRS, of 17%, from 2.4%-3.6% of revenue.
Working capital requirements has a seasonal fluctuation, but less than last year, up EUR 200 million, contributing to the improvement of free cash flow. Tax pay is up because, as I recall, January 2018, we enjoyed a tax reimbursement, non-recurring, EUR 116 million due to the cancellation of dividend tax. CapEx up slightly by EUR 50 million, in particular, VINCI Construction with the Gatwick impact. The CapEx on Gatwick is included under this item to the tune of EUR 50 million. We have slightly less CapEx on VINCI headquarters because we bought the land last year. Of course, the investment entry is very important, EUR 8 billion in total, including Gatwick, EUR 7.7 billion for Gatwick alone, LGW. This reflects GBP 7.7 billion at current exchange rates at acquisition. Free cash flow before financial investments is positive to the tune of EUR 316 million, whereas it was negative to the tune of EUR 136 million last year.
Over the past 10 years, I don't know if you had a look at this, it's only happened once in the past 10 years that free cash flow is positive in the first half at VINCI, given the seasonal nature of most of our businesses. It's pretty exceptional, even though it's a relatively modest amount in absolute terms, given what the group generates over the year. Looking at dividends, we continue to apply our well-known dividend policy. Capital increase in these plus 0.6, half of this comes from the capitalization of a share loan for London Gatwick. The impact of LGW at the 30th of June is not EUR 7.7 billion, but it's EUR 7.2 billion. The balance sheet, which is the next slide, shows a strong increase in capital employed up to EUR 50 billion versus EUR 38 billion and EUR 37.7 billion at 30 June 2018.
Strong increase of the concessions over EUR 42 billion and also contracting to the tune of EUR 13 billion. IFRS 16 impact accounts for approximately EUR 1.7 billion out of the EUR 50.5 billion in capital employed. Looking at assets, not much to say. We have an increase in the debt load. Gross financial debt, which is getting close to EUR 28 billion with a decline in cash due to seasonal effects. Given that cash does no longer generates very much at all. If we invest short term, it's actually a cost. We've sought to reduce it. To conclude the main financial transactions in the first half, I recall our ratings, A- S&P, A3 Moody's. S&P find it very difficult not to upgrade us. We're still A-, we have executed some transactions that I've referred to on the bond market in the first half.
We issued EUR 4.2 billion of new money on the bond market, average maturity of 11 years. We are extending gradually, the average maturity of our debt load, and we're continuing to reduce the cost of debt to 2.08%, even though 60% of the gross debt load only is denominated in EUR. This was not the case previously because we had 80% of our debt in EUR previously. Now the remaining 27% is in USD and the rest in GBP. We have an average cost of 2.08% of the debt, as you can see on the chart, bottom right. Continuing to decline from year on year, but I think we will probably reach a floor. The main debt issues, GBP 800 million at 2.6% on average and $1 billion at 3.9%.
An issue for London Gatwick, LGW, spanning the first and second halves, GBP 300 million on the 30 maturity, earn an excellent coupon, 8.0% or 8.1%. Cash, we're reducing cash, as I explained. We still have EUR 8 billion in available credit lines. Thank you very much, Christian.
Thanks. The landing point for 2019, everything you've heard allows us to confirm the guidance given six months ago. On the motorway business in France, we expect to see traffic growth in line with economic growth, subject of course, not as we don't suffer additional exceptional events. Once bitten, twice shy. Growth at VINCI Airports also, but with an 2018 comparison base that remains high, so the growth rate will be, yes, very significant, but lower than in 2018. In contracting, we strengthened in our guidance by the fact that the order book at the end of June is sharply up, as you can see, across businesses. Order book up 11% at the end of June 2018, with a split France, outside France, that benefits international, which is consistent with our strategic guidelines.
Growth in concessions will deliver growth in contracting, not just organic growth as in the first half, but the full year impact of the acquisitions in 2018. We must leverage that good climate in volume terms so as to continue to improve our margins. All this leads us to believe that this year, once again, will deliver further growth both in our revenue and net income, which led the Board of Directors that met yesterday to decide on an increase in the interim dividend of EUR 0.79 per share payable early November 2019. That's up 5.3% over last year. We are happy to take any questions you may have.
Jean-Christophe.
Jean-Christophe, do you want the mic? It might be good. Maybe we did that deliberately, not to give you the mic.
Thanks. Hello. Three quick ones, if I may. You mentioned the landing point in construction. It was said that the goal was to recover the margin at 2.8% from bottom up. Does that include the remedies, the claims, improved climate in France? It's a bit challenging, notably for residential construction. Second question, the EBITDA margin of ANA, is that up? The order of magnitude of the growth in traffic of the Duplex A86, please. Thanks.
Answer, on your first question, that's not the way you must look at things.
A construction site, a construction project never goes according to plan for reasons that are sometimes attributable to us that we recognize, sometimes for reasons that are attributable either to the client, because he changed a number of things, or the environment, namely what's happening in the subsoil. A project, a work site, you can have very sophisticated contracts. There are always things that need to be discussed during the life of the contract. When you're with clients, let's say, open and accommodating, well, you can solve, settle those modifications run of the river at the margin. When it's slightly more tense with your client, then you devote more time to settling them. Our anticipation on booking a number of additional revenue on a number of projects was disappointed here and there.
No names, but it explains it since we're prudent and we book expenses as they occur and when that income is agreed with the client, there's, of course, a lag over time. I don't think we can talk about claims. It's really just a discussion on possible changes that are inherent to our business. On the next two questions, the A&A margin, do we disclose that? [Christophe Anet] discloses. Well, we said it's flat. I mean, it's stable. The margin's pretty much flat at a very useful level. Your third point on the A86 traffic levels, we don't disclose. We don't. Yes. Next.
Whoever has the mic can ask a question.
Royal Bank of Canada, three questions. Number one, motorways, you had a strong improvement in margins. Can you please recall the percentage of payment that's done on an automated basis by retail customers? You were talking about the free-flow system. What are your ambitions in terms of new payments, revenues? A more technical question, if I may, you were talking about insurance revenue that contributed to EBITDA. Could you give us some more explanations? Also on construction margins, very happy to hear that it's flat for the year. Can you explain what is holding back the margin? Looking at the order book, do you hope with the major projects to improve getting back to previous margin levels? Third question, LGW Gatwick, there was no third runway project in the pipeline, but we're talking about an emergency one.
I don't know what the technical term is for this, but is this in line with your CapEx forecasts? Can you give us some info on this? Right. Well, construction margins are already answered earlier, so I'm not going to repeat what I said earlier. Gatwick, I think is completely in line with what we were planning. The third runway would be an upset, I mean, or second, in fact, second runway, it's not really for the near future, quite frankly. We're at the very beginning of a process that may last many years because you need many planning authorizations, especially from the stakeholders who live around the airport and everything that gravitates around the environmental issues.
Now, between the future implementation of the new runway and the current situation, there's a whole series of investments that we're planning in our business plan, which are improvements enabling optimization of the current runways, with some power systems enabling the plane to spend as little time as possible on the runway in order to further increase the number of planes that can land or take off from a single runway at any given time. There's always the possibility on any platform to make better use of the 24 hours in any day by encouraging some companies to land or take off outside peak hours in order to better spread the use of the airport infrastructure over day. Looking at motorways, automated payment, whatever the system through tele badge or bank card account represents 100%.
There's basically no or of this very much or there are almost no longer any manual cash payments. Looking at free flow, the difficulty with free flow is not so much a technical challenge, it's a difficulty that is due to regulatory reasons because, as you know, on the free flow system, the principle involves letting the vehicle through since there's no barrier at the toll booth to check whether it's authorized to go through or not by checking the badge or by checking the number plate. That's how we're conducting the experiment. Once it's through, then you get the information in the following nanosecond telling us whether he was entitled to go through, whether he has a bank account, and whether there's money on the bank account so that we can charge the toll.
If that's not the case, then you need to be able to track down the motorist, which presupposes that you're authorized to establish a link between the number plate and his civil status, and to be sure that once you've tracked down the motorist, he will be solvent and will be able to pay the toll. If you're in an environment which is very limited, for example, on an island, or if you're in a country where you only work with local citizens like France, well, there's no big problem.
When you're in a country like France, which has many motorists coming from many different countries, then, of course, it becomes more difficult because looking for a motorist from Lithuania or Romania or Bulgaria who's going through France, well, even if you have his number plate, if you can't put a name on the number plate, then quite frankly, it's not much use. If once you have the name, you're unable to access the bank details to get the toll paid, then it's not much use. The problem is finding a European-wide system that will enable us to ensure that the passage at the toll booth will trigger the payment.
The pace of installation of the free-flow system is not so much a technical problem as a regulatory problem at European level in order to enable us to have access to the civil status of the motorist and to have access to their bank account. That's more or less, that sums it up pretty much. Looking at insurance, we do not disclose information.
Hi from Oddo. A few quick ones. Still on the contracting margin on energy this time. We've been saying for a few years now that the margin has reached its maximum level, but it continues to grow year on year. Do you have any new targets that you've set? Can we expect an increase in line with the performance achieved for you? On the autoroutes, on the highways, can we expect an extension of the maturity of autoroutes in France? There was a piece in the paper, an interview by the Sanef CEO mentioning the possibility, well, rather proposing to fund the works on the non-conceded network by extending the maturity of his network. Do you think that's feasible given the current political climate? A final question.
On margin, VINCI Construction, can you tell us a bit more about the contracts that hurt the margin in terms of H1, in terms of geography type of difficulty?
I'll take them in reverse order as per usual. On VC, no, I can't give you the list of contracts because VINCI is what, 300,000 projects, contracts. You have small, medium, and large. The development that I mentioned, sometimes a bit more difficulty in booking and number of things from our clients, it's true. It's far from systematically, but it's often true for small, medium, and large contracts, but of course it has a bigger impact on big contracts. I can't give you the list because it impacts many contracts.
It's more kind of a general atmosphere, which is one of greater tension than previously, which reveals the kind of greater tension in the economy without going into further detail. On the extension of the motorways, it really depends what you're referring to. If the question is, do we think that relatively short term, we're capable of devising, finding agreements with the state on extending the lifetime of concessions? The answer is we don't dream. To my knowledge, the transport minister's responded. She said no. Well, there was the piece, the article by Sanef yesterday that was published yesterday on an issue that's not hugely original. We've all been thinking about it for a number of years. The minister has already answered that that was a non-starter. If it's a short term, my answer is yes. If it's more mid, long term, answer is maybe.
It seems to us still to be a particularly efficient way of funding a number of measures to develop land planning around the motorway network. In fact, a recent study commissioned by the transport ministry entrusted to an engineer, his name is Rappaport, actually refers to those proposals that involve, let's say, find ways of applying this rather smart principle to rely on existing concessions to improve or even restructure parts of the road networks around the motorways, but it's not going to happen tomorrow. On the VINCI Energies margin, no, I don't think we said that we'd reached the peak. We said that it was pretty good to stabilize at the level of 5.8% that we've been at for a number of years, but we're hopeful that we'll continue to improve it. It's small steps, one at a time.
Yes, of course, one day it will no doubt be possible to achieve 6% margin on VINCI Energies.
Right, Arnaud. HSBC. Going back on construction margins in France next year, there are some cost increases regarding the cancellation of tax niches on low salaries. We hear about the lack of labor force, higher tarmac costs. Can you tell us how this is going to impact the margins of VINCI Construction?
Well, in the contracting business, you have two types of contracts, small contracts and large contracts. On the small contracts, if there are any increases, they are relatively marginal increases since the information timeline does not enable these increases to be passed through. We have the major contracts, which are usually contracts with index linking formulae based on the take into account full cost of the project in the appropriate way, taking into account the cost of labor, the cost of oil, et cetera.
The challenge when you have changes along the lines of the tax treatment of diesel fuel for non-road diesel fuel, the difficulty, and I think this is what we're finding, is to have on the one hand, gradual implementation of the VAT change in order for the small contracts with a short-term cycle are not impacted, and to be able to take into account the new situation in how we set our prices for the following contracts. Number 2, the increase has to be taken into account. It has to be factored into the indices such that we are remunerated on the major contracts through an increase in the index. Ultimately, if that's how it goes, then we pass on that cost to the end user. On the road business, it's local authorities. The reality is that you make the local authorities pay.
I certainly wouldn't be saying this in front of journalists, by the way. This is an answer I can make on other subjects that you have raised, in particular on the tarmac business. Now, West Pierre, you'll correct me if I'm wrong. Tell us about the shortage of tarmac, Pierre, please. Good morning. Well, the shortage of tarmac, it's the second year running that we have a shortage of available tarmac at peak periods, end of June. We're in that period right now. It is linked to structural reasons due to the decline in the number of refineries in France and to cyclical factors, which tend to recur from one year to the next due to the economic situation, because maintenance costs, for example, in the refineries and pollution problems in other areas that were not foreseeable.
The whole profession is working on this particular problem, be it the motorway constructors or oil companies who are the manufacturers of tarmac, without forgetting, of course, the transport companies. All this is being supervised by the Transport Ministry, which is very concerned that construction sites may be held up because of this problem. Similar to last year, we have had some sites that have already been held up, and, as was the case last year, we've been able to avoid a broad shortage that would have stopped work for several weeks or months. What's going to happen in the months ahead, I simply can't tell you. We're doing everything in our power to ensure that our business is not impacted. We've done a good analysis of the situation.
We're working in partnership with the various stakeholders, and we're going to do absolutely everything to avoid being too severely penalized in the autumn, but we're very watchful on this. There are some antidotes. For example, signing long-term contracts with oil companies in order to be among the first clients to get delivery when there's tarmac available. Number 2, to have a greater storage capacity for tarmac and to be slightly less exposed to a shortage when there's slightly less tarmac available from the refineries. [Foreign language] Eddy.
Hi, I'm from Bryan Garnier. Two quick ones. The first on the Eurovia margin, you gave specific indication of the VC margin and for the VINCI Energies. Could we have some guidance on the landing point for the EBIT margin at Eurovia? Second question on digitization and construction. Could you give us an update where you're at in digitizing your job sites, work sites? Could this be a way for you, this digitization of reducing the changes that you may kind of run over river as part of the contracts on construction sites?
The Eurovia margin was what last year? 3.9%?
Three nine.
It will improve. It's set to improve.
A round number wouldn't be dumb. On contracting energy, as you'll have understood, incrementally, the margin will flourish. Eurovia Construction's on the low side because we should be around last year's level, bottom up. All in all, things are okay. On the changes, on your second question, which is a very broad question, digitization in a construction business is fully factored in. We're not at the end of the road, but BIM in construction, it's part of day-to-day business, but I recall I already gave you the speech, the pitch on this. BIM, you have the design BIM, divide design among the BIM, that's done. I'm talking about large companies, large corporates, global, that's done. I don't claim that it's all our job sites that are BIM designed, because often we don't control, we intervene ex-post after it's been designed by someone else.
That's underway, that's factored into our teams now. The maintenance operations BIM at VINCI Energies, that's developing well. The challenge is the middle BIM on the project during the construction phase. BIM to site, make sure that our coworkers, workers on site have the digital enablers to get it right first time with greater precision, and the site to BIM to take into account the work site as it is to update live the mockup so that it's consistent with what we've designed. That's a big challenge. We're making headway, but it's going to take years before we have projects that are fully digital on that front. What's true is that last part, the site BIM allows us to resolve the difficulties that were attributable to our organization, flaws, failures, et cetera.
We'll be even more rigorous with that enabler on the job site by getting it right first time. It won't change much as to the difficulties that stem from outside the job site. That's to say, a client who decides to modify the project at the margins thinks that it doesn't cost very much, when in fact, it's going to disrupt the whole chain or a stakeholder, a network concessionaire close to the job site who says that he has a pipe of something running under your site or geotechnical difficulties to discover, as was our case for the French Metro on Line 14, northern Paris. In the subsoil, there are water movements that are unpredictable, so we can't build, and that we had to freeze the soil with nitrogen.
It's going to be more efficient on site, but it's not going to be revolutionary as to solving difficulties that involve other partners, be it the client or stakeholders. Is that understandable? Don't know. Alexandre, do you understand that? Third question, was there? Are there any further questions?
[Sulfur Research]. I'd like to know, in terms of external growth, what would be the potential developments for Vinci? My second question is on the debt load. Is there a level of debt that you are specifically targeting since the group size has changed? The third question is on the launch of the work in Lisbon. When is this expected to start? I think there was a signing coming up, a contract to be signed. What's the story on that?
Right. The first two questions, then I'll hand over to Nicolas, so that he can answer the second question. The first question was on the external growth. No, Muriel, nothing has changed. As you know, we're pretty consistent. Our view is that each of our businesses can grow through acquisitions, those of our businesses which are profitable, in good shape, can do far more than others. To be clear, having a lot of external growth would probably be somewhat clumsy because our priority is to deal with what we have at present, which is the current scope of the VINCI Construction. Within these businesses, we have two specific points we're focusing on. One is airport concessions, the other one is energy and contracting for the reasons that we have explained at length.
Airports, it's self-explanatory. On energy, it's quite simply because the energy businesses are at a crossroads between two key themes that are driving these businesses at present, namely the energy transition and the digital revolution. We are living through that. In the energy business, as you know, there are a great deal of opportunities for external growth around the world, and we feel that we are fully able to integrate them. Everything is working well at VINCI Energies. We have an organization and marketing model which is performing very strongly. External growth will remain against that backdrop with the particular emphasis I've referred to. From time to time, as was the case last year, we will make some very good acquisitions for Eurovia, because Eurovia
At present, has a business that is extremely healthy. It has a strong organizational structure, a good operating structure, and it will continue to do a bit of shopping here and there, depending on the geographic areas where they feel most comfortable, and in particular, North America. There's not much else that can be added to that. Second question on Montijo and then the question on the debt load. An MoU was signed with the Portuguese government with 2 types of investment. The first will start in the autumn, similar to Gatwick. The idea here is to improve the efficiency and the fluidity of traffic on existing runways. This does not require any particular amendment. This will start after the summer season, and the rate of return here is around 7% and we have a very high rate of traffic.
The environmental study, the public inquiry, the public survey is underway for the Montijo Airport runway. We need to have that study before we get the go ahead. We expect the result of the survey in the autumn. Then once the result of the survey has been published, the amendment to our concession contract will have to reflect what is already in the MoU. We can implement that quite quickly. That means that the work would begin after all that and will last approximately three years after the date of signing. Thank you. The question on the debt load, there's no simple easy answer to that. The debt load changes depending on the assets that we have.
As I said earlier, S&P is finding it difficult to maintain our current rating of our A-. They would like to increase it to A from A- and even go higher than that. The question is, what are we going to do with that additional debt load capacity? If we acquire concessions, that will give us right to additional credit for the debt load. It is going to change depending on the profile of the Vinci group. After that, of course, what we are trying to do is to put the debt where it needs to be, which is on the assets on Vinci Autoroutes, on Gatwick, on ANA in Japan, et cetera. We need to optimize the debt loads of each asset in order to see what is left after that and if there is any additional excess capacity. It is very significant.
That doesn't mean we're going to go all out. It's not really part of our culture as we often recall.
Okay, we move to questions over the phone. Take the French questions first. We begin questions from over the phone. We have two questions if you want to ask a question, dial 01. Kindly speak slowly and clearly so that we can understand. First question from Morgan Stanley.
Hello, gentlemen. I'll try and speak slowly. A few questions starting with cash flow. Could Christian tell us a bit about the good performance on working capital requirement as well contained this year in spite of the strong growth and in contracting that would really have penalized you in the first half? Second, we saw a one-off last year on consolidated at equity. I think there's still another one. Japan's performed well, but we have quite a significant delta of EUR 60 million-EUR 70 million. Is there anything to add there?
Final point, could you give us an update on slightly more problematic situation in concessions, the Tamsag, on Nantes, potentially on Cambodia, on slightly trickier projects? Thank you.
Do you want time to think about that, Christian?
Yes.
On the first two questions, because I didn't understand the second one on the one-off. A one-off is non-recurring. Contrary to what some might too readily think, a concession is never a bed of roses. We know that for all our concessions, whatever, there are always times that are slightly more tense and strained than others. Strained or just with difficulties. The good news is that generally we can resolve them. You recall not so long ago of a situation in which we were from major French highway concessions. You mentioned Cambodia. I don't see what you're referring to, and so Nicolas not going to think about it if he can find issues of particular concern in Cambodia. You mentioned Nantes. Situation remains the same today. There's no negotiation underway for a simple reason.
That is for there to be negotiation, we have to be informed of the termination. We know that we will be terminated. We
I understand that we'll know this at the end of 2021. At this stage, we have not begun genuine negotiation as to the quantum that would be awarded to us on that occasion. In the meantime, we have to do with what we have available in order to welcome under good conditions, the airlines and passengers who continue to grow very significantly at Nantes Atlantic Airport. I think, if that's not mistaken, I don't know if it's the first half or Q2, we've achieved 18% growth rate at Nantes Atlantic Airport. We have to absorb that at constant installations, which is always quite a feat.
To end on Nantes, we know the government department and the engineering services are beginning to prepare a new project that's going to be the subject of a public inquiry and will serve as a basis for the consultation in 2021 to appoint a new concessionaire to operate Nantes Atlantic Airport. We are, of course, not involved in that work of design, discussion and inquiry. If we did so, we would be prevented from taking part in the competition the day it's launched, so I can't really say much more. As to LAMSAC, well, this is something that is indeed, not necessarily very easy to live with. The mayor of Lima, who came into office at the end of 2018, said to the press last week that he was going to ask for the cancellation of the concession of land site from international tribunals in support of his position.
He mentions presumed corruption between the Lima Municipality, that is his predecessors, and OAS, the Brazilian constructor at the origin of that concession. The LAMSAC company itself is the subject of absolutely no proceedings whatsoever. We heard the mayor of Lima make that statement of the local press at Lima last week, and so, for the time being, that's all we know. Our sense is that we have been flawless in this matter from the outset because it was won by OAS in 2009. They started the works and then they ceded the concession to a company called Invepar, that is a company made up of Brazilian pension funds, OAS remaining the constructor. Since they were unable to continue to build, they stopped the construction. That's where we stepped in in 2016. We bought the concession from Invía but not from OAS.
Invepar exited the OAS builder, we took over from OAS to complete the project under very difficult engineering conditions. We fully delivered on our share of the contract to complete the project that had been stopped because OAS were unable to continue to have fully complied with all contract terms and clauses to improve hugely traffic flow and user service by developing the toll through Pex company. Watch this space. On Cambodia.
Hello, this is Nicolas. You're probably referring to the fact that for some 10 years now, there's regularly in certain media, notably in Asia, mention made that in the future there might be new airport projects in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Nothing's moving. There's no beginnings of works, no contracts, no change on those airports. Secondly, the contractual provisions that obviously take account those cases on this concessions contract.
Thirdly, Cambodia, it performs very well because Phnom Penh and Siem Reap continue to grow. We saw a 15%, but we also have the very strong startup of the third airport Sihanoukville, that's going to top at 1.5 million passengers this year. There was zero three years ago, pretty unique case in our network. 150% growth with Chinese traffic. A concession that's doing well, contractual provisions, nothing new, but from time to time, there are possibilities mentions of new airports that we're also following but nothing's started. No particular threat in that country.
On working cap, the improved working capital, the slightest consumption of WCR on the half is about EUR 200 million due to cash in. That was better this year over last year, notably at Eurovia and VINCI Concessions. We exert pressure on our operational people.
They don't just focus on margins and on the bottom line, transforming the earnings into cash, and that's bearing fruits, a long-term effort that must percolate through every level of the organization. We're highly decentralized and it's paying off. On the income statement between operating income, EBIT and operating income last year, we benefit, we told you at the time of a one-off upside on the reconsolidation of Gefyra, our Greek company concessionaire of the Rion-Antirion Bridge, about EUR 10 million, We don't have this yet. There's an improvement in many units consolidated by the equity method. I mentioned Japan. There are others that more than offset this positive effect, Other items, the list is very long without going into the detail.
If I could come back on the working capital, is there also some profits for the benefit of prepayments on some big contracts that you announced, good contracts at the beginning of the year? I'm thinking of the I-64 in the U.S. or Ottawa. These contracts generate prepayments. Have we had those in H1 or can we expect some through the end of the year to continue to improve the W? To my knowledge, we haven't had those. For Ottawa, maybe. Ottawa, yes, but not Virginia. For the most part, no. The New Zealand contract, it's not even in the order book. Generally, well, you have to enter it. There has to be the advance payment, the payment order. It's one, but it's not booked in the order. On Ottawa, Pierre, the prepayment, we put that in the first half on the I-64.
Okay, let's take the next question in French, please.
Look. Changing all good.
Yes, hello.
One question. Can we go back on the margins of VINCI Autoroutes, which were up strongly in the first half 5% increase in EBITDA, whereas traffic is flat. Can you tell us about the drivers for the increase in margin? Is it the mix between SUVs and light vehicles? Thank you.
The answer is no. Christian has said everything about the mix combination of items, climate factors impacting the winter season and the one-off impact of previous incidents. That's all we can say. The clear answer, [Olivia], is no, you cannot go for a maintaining of this current level of EBITDA for the year as a whole.
Thank you. Next question, which will be in English.
He's gone off on holiday. That's Brexit.
Next question from Olivia Peters from Macquarie. Sir, please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Not quite holiday time, unfortunately. Olivia Peters from Macquarie. Just two questions, please. On LAMSAC, I was wondering if you could talk about the recourse you have in case of revocation of a contract. Is there a specific clause regarding remuneration if the contract does get canceled? Secondly, on Gatwick Airport, you have been very specific about the fact that you want to increase the retail spend per pax there. It's some of the lowest in the London area. Do you have a specific target in mind? Thank you.
Well, on LAMSAC, it's very premature. First off, over and above the oral communications, Lima Municipality would have to start acting. What they said that they would place the matter in the hands of international bodies, no doubt referring to the fact that in the contract it's mentioned that in the event of a dispute, that disputes are treated by, what's it called? An international arbitration in Paris. That's how it was written into the initial contract. We are not at all in the situation of beginning to look at the contractual clauses. On Gatwick retail. I didn't get the full detail on Gatwick, actually there are two things. In the current phase, we have the work that Xavier mentioned going from 55 to 60 movements, potential traffic increase in the movement. Passenger yield, where we have increased ambitions to readjust, redevelop the terminal.
Gatwick's very efficient operational, but has some room for progress that we'll activate. It'll take a few months, a few years to put in place those developments. There's an upside that they announced recently is that the northern runway project has been officially presented as the master plan. The lady was focusing on retail. On retail, we have plans to redevelop, but won't have immediate effects because we have to redo the inside. The premises are cramped, but things can be done, and we planned over the next two, three years to develop these areas and to boost the passenger yield.
[Foreign language] One last question. Back to Frank. Yes. Schubert, over to you.
Good morning. Kepler Cheuvreux. Two questions, if I may. Can you give us an indication on like-for-like on VINCI Airports for growth? You have a distinction for revenue, +8%, and published with external growth at +44%. For EBITDA, we don't have the like for like. We only have overall growth, an overall increase of 38%. The second question, to go back to the question of the 180 basis point improvement in the margins for the motorway business in the first half. Looking at the winter maintenance entry, did that have an impact since the winter period was quite mild? Can you provide us some explanation for the behavior looking ahead to the second half? Well, that's what we said, isn't it? Yes, I think that's exactly what we said, Joseph.
What we said is that the cyclical improvement in the EBITDA margin for VINCI Autoroutes in the first half is due to several factors. One of them being the fact that the weather conditions enabled us to use less maintenance product for winter maintenance work. We didn't go into further detail because we need to keep a few secrets, don't we? Looking at the like-for-like, the EBITDA margin for the Autoroute business, we never give the VINCI Airports. We never give the figures on that. We never disclose. Well, okay. You say whatever you want then. I don't have a precise figure, but taking into account IFRS 16 and Gatwick, we have growth to the tune of 13% approximately. That includes OGW. Anyway, it's double digit. Thank you very much indeed.