The government of Serbia has signed a €606m deal with China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to build a 48km motorway in the north of the country, See News reports.
The Fruskogorski Corridor road will run between the Vojvodina towns of Ruma and Novi Sad, and will include a bridge over the Danube river, as well as a 3.5km tunnel under the Fruska Gora national park, according to a government statement issued Tuesday.
The road will be connected to the A1 motorway that runs between the Hungarian and Romanian borders, as well as the future Ruma-to-Loznica motorway.
When complete, the Fruskogorski Corridor will link the Trans-European transport corridors X and IV and provide a shortcut between Bosnia and Romania.
Infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic proposed the road in 2015, and planned to begin in 2016 if funding could be arranged.
Then, in 2017, she announced that the project would go ahead in 2018, but these plans were also dependent on funding.
Finally, in August 2020 Mihajlovic announced that a loan had been agreed with the Export-Import Bank of China.
CRBC, a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company, is presently working on a €450m, 31km section of motorway between the central Serbian towns of Preljina and Pozega (see further reading).
In November last year, the Government of Serbia awarded a $504.2m (€450m) contract to CRBC for construction of the Preljina-Pozega motorway section.
Image: Serbian infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic (Safoleto/CC BY-SA 3.0)
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