April 16 (SeeNews) - The completion of the 520 million euro ($570 million) Peljesac bridge in southern Croatia might be delayed by two or three months because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, prime minister Andrej Plenkovic has said.
"The deadline is July 31, 2021 but because of the coronavirus and the inability of our experts to go to China and see how certain segments and elements of the bridge are being manufactured, the deadline could be missed by some 2 to 3 months," Plenkovic said in a statement on Monday, after vising the construction site.
Plenkovic also said that the construction of part of the access roads being built by Austria's Strabag is going on as planned, while the start of the construction of the remaining access roads that will be built by Greece's Avax is facing a delay.
The construction of the Peljesac bridge started in July 2018 after Croatian road operator Hrvatske Ceste (HC) signed a 2.08 billion kuna ($300 million/274 million euro) deal for the implementation of the project with a Chinese consortium led by CRBC.
The bridge will connect the peninsula of the same name with the rest of mainland Croatia over the Adriatic, providing an alternative route to crossing the Neum Corridor - a strip of the Adriatic coastline situated in Bosnia and Herzegovina between these two parts of Croatia. The Peljesac bridge will be 55 m high and 2.4 km long, with four lanes.
In October 2019, Croatia signed two deals worth some 990 million kuna in total, hiring Strabag and Avax for the construction of the access roads.
(1 euro = 7.58058 kuna)