SKOPJE (Macedonia), December 20 (SeeNews) – Macedonian railway operator Makedonski Zeleznici-Infrastruktura has signed a 39.8 million euro ($54.3 million) deal with Germany’s Wibe for the upgrade of the Kumanovo-Beljakovce railway section, part of pan-European transport Corridor VIII, the Macedonian transport ministry said on Friday.
The reconstruction works on the 31 kilometre (km) railway track in eastern Macedonia leading up to the Bulgarian border should start in March 2014 and should be completed by the third quarter of 2016, the transport ministry said in a statement on its website.
In eastern Macedonia, Corridor VIII includes two more railway sections - from Beljakovce-Kriva Palanka, with a length of 34 km, and from Kriva Palanka to the Bulgarian border with a length of 24 km. The construction of the Beljakovce-Kriva Palanka section will cost 144 million euro while the works on the third section that leads to the Bulgarian border are estimated at 360 million euro.
Corridor VIII, with total length of 586 km, runs from the southern Italian ports of Bari and Brindisi, through Albania and Macedonia to the Bulgarian Black Sea ports of Burgas and Varna.
($=0.7333 euro)