December 21 (SeeNews) - The European Commission has approved a 16.48 million euro ($17.5 million) grant for the construction of a road bridge connecting Romania to Moldova over the Prut river, a Romanian government official said.
Tendering for services related to the construction of the bridge will start shortly, transport ministry secretary Ionel Scriosteanu said in a social media post on Tuesday.
The bridge, 261 metres in length and 13 metres wide, will connect Ungheni village in Romania to its namesake town in Moldova over the Prut river.
Works on the bridge will cost an estimated 33 million euro and are expected to take 43 months to complete, according to a project description posted on the transport ministry's website. Construction works will be co-financed by Moldova with 2 million euro, while the remainder will be covered by Romania and with European funds, Scriosteanu said in January.
The new bridge is part of Romania's A8 Motorway project.
Moldova and Romania signed an agreement to jointly build the bridge in February under the Connecting Europe Facility, an EU fund established in 2014 for infrastructure investments across the union in transport, energy, digital and telecommunication projects.
($=0.94 euro)