August 2 (SeeNews) - Serbia plans to open for traffic the entire 103-kilometre long Obrenovac-Cacak section of European transport Corridor XI on August 18, infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic has said.
The construction of the Surcin-Obrenovac section of Corridor XI will be completed in December, Mihajlovic said in a press release on Thursday.
The government is also preparing a project for the construction of the motorway section linking Surcin to Belgrade, which will be completed in two years, she added.
In April, the government signed a memorandum of understanding with China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) for the construction of the Surcin-Belgrade motorway.
Serbia hired China's Shandong Hi-Speed Group (SDHS) in 2013 to build the Obrenovac-Ub and Lajkovac-Ljig sections of Corridor XI motorway, with a combined length of 50.2 km. The works were financed with the proceeds of a $334 million (301 million euro) loan from the Export-Import Bank of China.
The 40.35 km Ljig-Cacak section of the motorway opened for traffic in November 2016. The works on the section were valued at 308 million euro in total and were led by Azeri construction company Azvirt.
Corridor XI is a ferry/motorway corridor linking Italy's Bari to Romania's Bucharest via Montenegro's Bar port and Serbia's Belgrade.
($ = 0.901454 euro)