SKOPJE (Macedonia), December 14 (SeeNews) – The European Union is providing a grant of 68.6 million euro ($78 million) to back a project financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the modernisation of Macedonia’s railway infrastructure, the bank said on Friday.
The EU grant, extended through the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF), will be used to co-finance the construction of approximately 34 km of the rail network in Macedonia, the EBRD said in a press release following the signing of the grant agreement in Skopje.
The railway section under the project links Beljakovce to Kriva Palanka, in eastern Macedonia, and is the second phase of rail Corridor VIII upgrade. Once completed, the railway will become part of the Trans-European transport network, linking Macedonia with Albania in the west and Bulgaria in the east.
The grant comes on top of two sovereign loans of 46.4 million euro and 145 million euro provided by the EBRD to the Macedonian government for on-lending to the local public enterprise for railway infrastructure.
“The first phase of the project – the rehabilitation of a rail section approximately 31 km in length between Kumanovo and Beljakovce – is currently being implemented. For the second phase, procurement activities have started and the contractor that will carry out the work is now being selected,” the EBRD noted.
The WBIF has also been providing technical cooperation grants in the amount of 5.7 million euro for project preparation and implementation.
($ = 0.87973 euro)