July 17 (SeeNews) - Croatian motorways operator Hrvatske Ceste will open soon a tender for construction of part of the access roads to the future bridge to Bosnia over the Sava river, to be built near the Bosnian town of Gradiska, Croatia's transport minister Oleg Butkovic said.
Hrvatske Ceste is in charge of holding a tender for the access roads, Butkovic told a news conference in Zagreb on Tuesday, according to a press release issued by the transport ministry.
The news conference was held after the ministry and Hrvatske Ceste signed a contract with a consortium comprising Bosnia's Integral Inzenjering and Croatia's Djuro Djakovic Montaza and Zagreb Montaza for the construction of the bridge.
The project is worth 19.5 million euro ($21.9 million) without VAT, or 23.5 million euro including VAT, the ministry said.
The four-lane bridge will be 426 metres long and 22.6 metres wide.
Construction works on the bridge should be completed within 30 months.
The construction of the Sava river bridge represents the first stage of a project to build a 20 km motorway section between the Croatian village of Okucani and the border with Bosnia. The section will be part of a motorway stretching from Croatia's border with Hungary in the north to the border with Bosnia border in the south.
In Bosnia, the section will be linked to the Gradiska-Banja Luka motorway, making up the so-called Trans-European Corridor E661.
Bosnia and Croatia have launched two separate tenders under the bridge construction project, with Croatia in charge of hiring a contractor for the Sava bridge and Bosnia heading the search for a construction works supervisor.
The project is part of the Indicative Extension of the TEN-T (Trans-European Transport) Core Network in the Western Balkans.
($=0.891963 euro)