June 29 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria will invest a total of 321 million euro ($336.6 million) in three infrastructure projects which received approval by the European Commission under the Connecting Europe Facility, the transport ministry said on Wednesday.
The Commission will provide financing to the tune of 273 million euro out of the total amount, the ministry said in a statement.
The upgrade and construction of a 45-km stretch of the electric railway line connecting Sofia to Bulgaria's northwesternmost city of Vidin is one of the projects approved by the EU’s funding mechanism for strategic investment in transport infrastructure. The plan foresees the construction of associated infrastructure including tunnels, overpasses and three new railway stations.
Under the second project, Bulgarian company Transexpress will receive 8.6 million euro for a 29-month project to build a multimodal logistics platform in a railway and road terminal west of Sofia.
Over 38.9 million euro will be made available for improving low carbon port infrastructure at the Port of Burgas. The 39-month project involves the construction of green gantry crane equipment at the port, enabling cargo to be shipped to the rest of Europe by railway, as well as the improvement of port railway infrastructure to allow the use of electric shunting locomotives and electric charging stations for ships.
On Tuesday, the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) that it has selected some 135 transport infrastructure projects for total EU financing of 5.4 billion euro in grants to support post-pandemic recovery in member states and improve the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), which is scheduled to be completed by 2030.
($ = 0.9544 euro)