February 1 (SeeNews) - Montenegro's state-run motorway operator Monteput said it opened a tender with an estimated value of 5 million euro ($5.4 million) for the preparation of a preliminary design for the construction of a 50-km section of the Bar-Boljare motorway, part of European transport Corridor XI.
The preliminary design for the motorway section that would stretch from Andrijevica via Berane to Boljare, on the border with Serbia, should contain all necessary data and conditions for the works, as well as for the supply and installation of the needed equipment, test work and functional testing, Monteput said in a tender notice published on Wednesday.
The bidding deadline will expire on March 18, when the offer will be opened. The winner of the tender will have 14 months to prepare the preliminary design.
The Andrijevica-Boljare stretch is the third section of the 129-km Bar-Boljare motorway that Montenegro will build. In July 2022, Montenegro opened the first section of the motorway - the 41-km Smokovac-Matesevo stretch, which was built by China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). The government in Podgorica plans to launch in the first half of 2024 a tender for the construction of the second section - the 21-km Matesevo-Andrijevica stretch.
Back in 2014, Montenegro signed a $944 million loan deal with China's Exim Bank for the financing of the Bar-Boljare investment project.
The Bar-Boljare motorway will link Montenegro's Adriatic port of Bar to the country's border with Serbia in the north. European transport Corridor XI is a ferry/motorway corridor linking Italy's Bari to Romania's Bucharest via the port of Bar and Serbia's Belgrade.
($ = 0.923 euro)