Montenegro to open pre-qualification process for Bar-Boljare motorway section

The construction of Matesevo-Andrijevica will start in September, PES said in a statement in the weekend.

Montenegro will get a 200 million euro ($218 million) grant from the European Commission for the project, which is the largest single grant so far in the country's history, the statement read.

Earlier in March, Spajic said that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) plans to approve a loan of 200 million euro towards the Matesevo-Andrijevica project.

According to earlier estimates, the preliminary value of the project is seen at 600 million euro.

The Bar-Boljare motorway will link Montenegro's Adriatic cost to the country's border with Serbia in the north. It is part of European transport Corridor XI, a ferry/motorway corridor linking Italy's Bari to Romania's Bucharest via the port of Bar and Serbia's Belgrade.

The Matesevo-Andrijevica stretch is the second 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). In January, the government opened a tender for the preparation of a preliminary design for the construction of the third section, the 50-km Andrijevica-Boljare stretch.

In 2014, Montenegro signed a $944 million loan deal with China's Exim Bank for financing the first phase of the Bar-Boljare investment project.

($ = 0.918 euro)