Deal signed with Bosnia over road construction

SARAJEVO - Reuters

Bosnia’s Bosniak-Croat Federation has signed a $237 million deal with Turkish construction company Cengiz İnşaat to build the remaining 10 kilometers of a 20-kilometer section of a future north-to-south highway.

Mountainous Bosnia has only around 40 kilometers of highways. It plans to build another 40 kilometers in the next two years as part of the pan-European VC corridor linking Budapest, Hungary, in the north with the Croatian port of Ploce in the south.

“This contract has been the most valuable single contract signed so far for the construction of the VC corridor,” Ensad Karic, the director of the Bosniak-Croat autonomous region’s roads and highways authority Autoceste, said Dec. 21.

The funding for the construction of the Vlakovo-Lepenica section has been secured through a loan from the European Investment Bank, which is along with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development the key creditor of infrastructure projects in the Balkan country. Earlier this year, Cengiz İnşaat won two other deals to build 10 kilometers of the 20-kilometer-long Vlakovo-Tarcin section, south of Sarajevo.