September 18 (SeeNews) - Serbia's president Aleksandar Vucic officially opened on Saturday the 30.5 km-long motorway stretch of European transport Corridor X between Pirot and Dimitrovgrad, on the border with Bulgaria.
The launch of the section brings Serbia closer to its objective of having 1,200 km of motorways and improves the connection of Belgrade to Sofia and Istanbul, Vucic said in a statement on Saturday.
Travel on the motorway section will be toll-free by the end of 2017 and will cost 190 dinars ($1.90/1.59 euro) per passenger car as of 2018, the Serbian infrastructure ministry said in a separate statement on Saturday.
The newly opened section comprises an 8.3 km-long bypass road around Dimitrovgrad, financed by the World Bank and built by Greek company Aktor, a 14.3 km-long Pirot East-Dimitrovgrad motorway financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and built by Bulgarian civil engineering company Trace Group Hold, as well as a 7.35 km-long Stanicenje-Pirot East motorway section, built by Aktor and financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Corridor X will connect Salzburg in Austria to the Greek port of Thessaloniki, passing through Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia. In Serbia, the project includes the construction of the Belgrade bypass motorway, as well as two separate sections, linking Nis to Levosoje, near the border with Macedonia, to the south, and to the border with Bulgaria to the east.