April 25 (SeeNews) - Montenegro's state-run motorway operator Monteput has opened a pre-qualification tender for design and construction of a 22-kilometre section of the highway that would connect the Adriatic city of Bar to Boljare, on the Serbian border, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said.
The tender for the Matesevo-Andrijevica section will be carried out in two stages, with a pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) being the initial evaluation stage, the EBRD said in a notice published on the e-procurement portal on Wednesday.
The deadline for submitting pre-qualification bids expires on June 23.
Earlier in April, the EBRD said Monteput intends to use part of the proceeds of a 200 million euro ($214 million) EBRD loan towards the cost of the project, whose total value is estimated at 530 million euro.
The ruling party Europe Now (PES) of Montenegro's prime minister Milojko Spajic said in March that the country will receive a 200 million euro grant from the European Commission for the project, which is the largest single grant so far in the country's history.
On Wednesday, local daily Vijesti cited Spajic as saying during a news conference in Podgorica that the implementation of the Matesevo-Andrijevica project is expected to start at the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025, which is a year and a half ahead of plan.
The executive director of Monteput, Milan Ljiljanic, told the same news conference, as quoted by Vijesti, that construction works on the section are to be completed at the end of 2029.
The Bar-Boljare highway is part of European transport Corridor XI, a ferry/highway corridor linking Italy's Bari to Romania's Bucharest via the port of Bar and Serbia's Belgrade.
The Matesevo-Andrijevica stretch is the second section of the 129-km Bar-Boljare motorway that Montenegro will build. In July 2022, Montenegro opened the first section of the motorway, the 41-km Smokovac-Matesevo stretch, which was built by China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). In January, the government opened a tender for the preparation of a preliminary design for the construction of the third section, the 50-km Andrijevica-Boljare stretch.
($ = 0.936 euro)