February 8 (SeeNews) - Serbia's infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic said the government plans to launch by the end of 2018 a tender and pick a contractor for the first phase of the construction of a motorway linking the city of Nis with Pristina in Kosovo via Merdare.
The first phase of the project will see the construction of a 40 km motorway stretch between Nis and Plocnik, in southern Serbia, Mihajlovic said, as quoted in a statement by the government on Wednesday.
Serbia will receive 212 million euro ($259.9 million) in financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for the construction of the first section of the motorway connecting Nis to Merdare, Mihajlovic said November.
Earlier in November, Negre said the EIB will double its investments in the Western Balkans in the next three years to 3 billion euro from 1.5 billion euro planned earlier through its Economic Resilience Initiative launched in 2016 following a call from the European Council.
The 77 km Nis-Merdare motorway is part of a road link extending to the Albanian capital Tirana and further on to the Adriatic port of Durres.
($=0.8156 euro)