January 20 (SeeNews) - The Serbian government plans to shortly open a tender for the reconstruction of a railway line between the capital Belgrade and Nis, in the south of the country, infrastructure minister Goran Vesic said.
Speaking during a meeting with the Turkish ambassador to Belgrade, Hami Aksoy, Vesic invited Turkish companies to participate, the infrastructure ministry said in a press release on Thursday.
No details about the tender were announced.
Serbia is expected to shortly sign a grant agreement with the EU for the project, Vesic also said.
Local media have reported that the EU grant will stand at 598 million euro ($647.8 million).
The European Investment Bank said in June that the total cost of the project is estimated at around 2.78 billion euro, of which it proposed to contribute 1.18 billion euro. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said in July it would provide a sovereign loan of up 550 million euro to Serbia to co-finance the project.
The plan is for the reconstructed railway line in northern Serbia to support train speeds of 200 km/h, and reduce the journey time from Belgrade to Nis to an hour and twenty minutes.
($ = 0.9228 euro)