Serbia agrees fresh 500 mln euro EIB financing - govt

Serbia will sign in December an agreement on a 250 million euro loan from the EIB for the electrification of the Nis-Dimitrovgrad railway line and the construction of a ring road in Nis, Mihajlovic said, according to a government press release issued on Wednesday.

Moreover, the government will receive 212 million euro financing from the EIB for the construction of the first section of the motorway connecting Nis to Merdare, Mihajlovic said during an inspection of construction works on a bridge across the Sava River in Ostruznica, part of Belgrade ring road.

The EIB has invested 100 million euro in the construction of the Belgrade ring road thus far, the head of the EIB Regional Representation for the Western Balkans, Dubravka Negre, said during the inspection of the construction site.

The Ostruznica bridge is being built by a consortium led by Austrian civil engineering group Strabag and is expected to be completed in April 2018. Total investment in the project will stand at 3.57 billion dinars ($35.5 million/30.1 million euro).

Earlier this month, Negre said the EIB will double its investments in the Western Balkans in the next three years to 3 billion euro from 1.5 billion euro planned earlier through its Economic Resilience Initiative launched in 2016 following a call from the European Council.

($ = 0.849038 euro)