Serbia signs 154 mln euro deal for Nis railway bypass construction

Extra Auto Transport was contracted as a leading member of a consortium which also includes China Road and Bridge Corporation, Infrastruktura Zeleznice Srbije said in a statement on Thursday when the deal was signed.

Works are expected to start in July and to last 1,035 days.

Once completed, the new, single-track electrified railway road will allow speeds of up to 120 km per hour.

The Nis bypass is part of the ongoing project for the overhaul of the 100-km railway line linking Nis with Dimitrovgrad, on the border with Bulgaria.

Works on the overhaul began in November 2023. The project includes the reconstruction of the 80 km Sicevo-Stanicenje-Dimitrovgrad section, the construction of the Nis bypass and the electrification of the entire railway line that connects Nis to Dimitrovgrad.

In March, transport minister Goran Vesic said that Serbia will start the revamp of the 230-km railway line linking Belgrade with Nis in 2025, planning to increase train travel speed to 200 km/h and shorten the travel time to an hour and 40 minutes instead of the current six hours.

The Belgrade-Nis railway line forms part of Pan-European Corridor X connecting central Europe to Greece's Aegean port of Thessaloniki. Its branch - Corridor Xc, follows the route from Nis via Dimitrovgrad to Bulgaria's Sofia and Plovdiv and Turkey's Edirne and Istanbul, linking Belgrade with the capitals of Bulgaria and Turkey.

($ = 0.935 euro)