EIB Lends Serbia 384 Mln Euro for Motorway Construction

The loan will finance 40% of the project cost, EIB said in a statement. The 75-kilometre section of European Union-defined Corridor X will link Grabovnica and Levosoje in southern Serbia.

The loan agreement was signed by Serbia’s Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic and the EIB President Philippe Maystadt in Luxembourg earlier on Friday.

"This operation is the EIB’s seventh project in the road sector in Serbia since 2000 and is also the largest single loan provided by EIB in Serbia to date," the statement said.

In June, the EIB signed four loans with Serbia worth a total of 140 million euro to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as energy and infrastructure in the EU-aspiring country.

Pan-European Corridor X links western Europe with Greece over land. It stretches 2,360 kilometres across eight countries, including Serbia. Two legs of the corridor cross Serbia - leg B connects the Hungarian capital Budapest with Novi Sad and Belgrade, and leg C links Nis with Pirot and, further east, with the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

($=0.6647 euro)