July 18 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government plans to start the overhaul and electrification of the 100 km Dimitrovgrad-Nis railway line in the eastern part of the country later this year, infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic has said.
In 2019, the government will launch the project for electrification of the Nis-Dimitrovgrad railway line and will complete the overhaul of a 70 km-long stretch of the railroad linking Nis to Zajecar, Mihajlovic said in a press release on Wednesday.
A total of 268.3 million euro ($301.5 million) will be invested in the reconstruction of the Nis-Dimitrovgrad railway line, Mihajlovic said last year.
The vice-president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), Dario Scannapieco, said last year that the lender has signed an agreement to extend a 130 million euro loan towards the cost of overhaul and electrification of the Dimitrovgrad-Nis railway line. The European Commission will support the project with a 73 million euro investment under the Western Balkan connectivity agenda in addition to the EIB loan, Scannapieco said back then.
State-run railway infrastructure company Infrastruktura Zeleznice Srbije is currently investing 960 million euro in the reconstruction and upgrade of 402 kilometres of railway lines, the company said earlier this month.
($ = 0.889869 euro)