PODGORICA (Montenegro), February 13 (SeeNews) – China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) plans to complete the construction of the Kosman tunnel of the Bar-Boljare motorway in Montenegro in 2019, project manager Zhang Wenyuan said.
The Kosman tunnel will be fully perforated by the end of 2018 and completed in early 2019, daily newspaper Dnevne novine quoted Wenyuan as saying on Saturday.
The company has perforated 80 m of each of the tunnel's tubes so far, Wenyuan said.
CRBC will complete the construction of Mala trava, a tunnel on the Smokovac-Matesevo section of the same highway, in August 2018.
The company plans to build a total of eight bridges on the stretch, in addition to another two tunnels - Jabucki krs and Vjeternik.
The Montenegrin government signed a 809.6 million euro ($861.5 million) deal with CRBC on the construction of the Smokovac-Matesevo stretch in February 2015.
The construction of the first phase of the Bar-Boljare motorway commenced in 2015. A total of 85% of the financing for this phase will be met through a $1.1 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank of China (Chinese Eximbank) and the remainder via market issuance.
Bar-Boljare represents the Montenegrin part of the Bar-Belgrade motorway, part of Corridor XI - an envisioned ferry/motorway corridor linking Bari, Bar, Belgrade and Bucharest.
($ = 0.9397 euro)