EUR 400 million to go into rehabilitation of roads

ZAJECAR - Serbia’s Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic said Friday that the following two to three years would see around EUR 400 million invested in rehabilitation of roads in almost all regions of Serbia.

Visiting the works on the reconstruction of state and local roads in eastern Serbia, Mihajlovic told reporters that the money would come through loans from the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the rehabilitation of the road network, which had been ratified by the parliament recently.

The World Bank will give EUR 73.8 million, the EIB and the EBRD will provide EUR 100 million each and Serbia will participate with EUR 116.2 million, or 29 percent of the entire fund for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of about 1,100 kilometers of roads.

Visiting the eastern Serbian town of Zajecar, where road infrastructure works worth EUR 1.4 billion are being carried out, Mihajlovic said that the government had allocated RSD 800 million, and the city EUR 600 million for the works, and the works were unrelated to the loans for roadworks, whose implementation was yet to begin.

Mihajlovic, who also serves as deputy prime minister, said that the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure had started putting together consortia of road repair and construction companies.

She said that the goal was for those companies that could provide guarantees and those firms that could not to tender together for all the works to be carried out in Serbia.
“We have already set up a consortium of road companies and we will present them to the public, and we expect to do the same with construction...