Bulgaria Plans To Complete Construction of Two Key Motorways by 2011 - Media

“The first fully completed motorway will be Trakia and in parallel with it - Maritsa. I hope this will happen within three years,” Bulgarian Regional Development Minister Asen Gagauzov told Standart daily in an interview. He did not elaborate on the planned investment.

The Trakia motorway is designed to link Bulgaria’s western border with the Black Sea port city of Burgas. The 117-kilometre Maritsa motorway is part of EU-defined transport corridor IV linking Turkey with central Europe.

A Portuguese-led consortium was chosen in 2005 to build the 715 million euro ($922 million) Trakia motorway, but in May this year the Bulgarian government cancelled the deal after the concessionaire failed to secure financing for the project. Earlier this year the government said the completion of Maritsa was postponed by one year to 2010.

To cope with the financial crisis Bulgaria will try to enter new markets with public infrastructure projects, Gagauzov said.

“In Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan construction companies are needed. We are planning to build also in the Krasnodar Krai [federal subject of Russia],” Gagauzov said.

Builders on the Black Sea coast will be the most affected by the crisis, as the construction sector is the hardest hit sector in Bulgaria, he said.

($=0.775 euro)