April 13 (SeeNews) - Serbian prime minister Aleksandar Vucic said on Thursday that Chinеse state-owned hydropower engineering and construction company Sinohydro and Azeri builder Azvirt will start the construction of a stretch of the Belgrade bypass road in May.
Serbia will shortly sign an agreement for the financing of the project in Chinese yuans, Vucic said during an official ceremony for the launch of a tollbooth on the Belgrade-Nis motorway, as quoted in a statement from the government.
The new tollbooth, located in Vrcin, will replace the existing station in Bubanj Potok, which will be dismantled to open space for the construction of a link between the Belgrade bypass road and the Belgrade-Nis motorway, the government said. The Vrcin tollbooth has 23 lanes and a capacity to handle 5,600 vehicles per hour.
In November, the Serbian government signed a 207 million euro ($220 million) deal with Sinohydro's parent Power Construction Corporation of China (PCCC) for the construction of the 19.5 kilometre-long Ostruznicki bridge-Bubanj Potok section of the Belgrade bypass road.
The stretch, which will include 22 bridges and four tunnels, is part of the 37.3 km-long Section B of the bypass road in the southern area of Belgrade.