ANALYSIS
Zos Trnava, for the construction of 150 freight railway cars.
This year, plans include the construction of six new
passenger trains and reconstruction of Skopje’s main
railway station as well as ten more along Corridor 10.
Long-awaited rail link to Bulgaria
At bilateral talks held last July in the Bulgarian town
of Kyustendil, both Macedonian and Bulgarian officials agreed that improving mutual transport links
was on their list of priorities. After all, Bulgaria has
just 2 kilometers of track to lay in order to reach the
Macedonian border.
Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Finance, Zoran Stavreski, recently said that construction of the first section of the long-awaited railway
running eastward to Bulgaria will start this year and
should be completed by 2022. This announcement
follows two decades of similarly expressed intentions that have been left largely unrealized.
“The first section, from Kumanovo to Beljakovce, should be completed by 2017 and the
two remaining sections should be finished by
2022,” Stavreski said, adding that the railway
will be key to reviving the economy in the
east of the country.
The project will be implemented in three distinct
parts. The first stretch will be financed by an already approved €46.4 million EBRD loan and built
by H.F. Wiebe, starting in March. The Government
said it had also received written confirmation from
the European Investment Bank (EIB) that it will help
finance the second stretch, estimated to cost €145
million. Construction on the second section should
begin in 2015. The plan for the third section (leading
to the Bulgarian border itself) estimated to cost €332
million is still under preparation.
Last year alone, Serbia built just over 58 kilometers
of new highway along Corridors 10 and 11. The construction of new highways in the October 2012-December 2013 period was worth €262 million. While
most of the financing for new roads in Serbia up to
the end of 2013 came from the IMF, the EBRD and
the EIB and the work was carried out by construction
companies like Aktor and Terna, the start of 2014
marked a notable shift toward financing from Chinese investment funds in Serbia.
In late December 2013, the Chinese Shandong HiSpeed Group started construction at the Obrenovac-Ub stretch of Corridor 11 that will better link the
country with Romania and Montenegro. In October
2013, Serbia borrowed some $300 million from the
Chinese EXIM bank for this project as well as to cover
another stretch from Lajkovac to Ljig.
At the Bulgaria Economic Forum held in Sofia in November, the Bulgarian government presented the
major infrastructure projects to be funded under
EU’s Operational Programmes in the 2014 and 2020
period. Among the main road projects to be financed
with the funds are the Struma highway (connecting
Sofia with the Greek border), the Hemus highway
(from Sofia to the coastal city of Varna) and the Black
Sea highway (connecting the two major coastal cities
of Varna and Burgas).
In terms of rail, Bulgaria plans to complete and repair
the tracks between Plovdiv and Burgas, to upgrade
the Karnobat-Sindel railway (connecting southeastern and northeastern Bulgaria) as well as to repair
the railway between the towns of Ruse and Varna.
From the Bulgarian side, the work will be a lot easier
as the country has to finish only some 2 kilometers
to the border.
Other major projects in the region
In 2011, Albania’s Rreshen-Kalimash highway was
completed by Bechtel-Enka at a cost of $1.2 billion.
Today, Aktor is working in Albania on the TiranaElbasan highway project.
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Emerging Macedonia Winter 2014 Issue 40