Contract for concession for Corridor 11 in early 2015

The contract for construction and management of the highway sections at Corridor 11 could be signed in early 2015, the minister of construction, traffic and infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlovic, said.

She said to Beta agency that the state is now negotiating the concession with Chinese companies CRBC (China Road and Bridge Corporation) and Shandong High-speed Group.

Mihajlovic said the talks on a few models of concession have been in progress which comprise options of toll payment collection, otion of renting lend next to roads or participation in other projects.

Mihajlovic, who is a Vice President of the Government of Serbia, said that everything possible when it comes to infrastructure projects will be built through concessions or some partnerships so that the country would not generate additional debts through loans.

She mentioned the Belgrade-Zrenjanin road as a potential concession project for which detailed feasibility study will be developed.

She said that the project which must end by May 2015 will be developed for the Belgrade-Novi Sad railroad and specified it will be a fast railroad which will take half an hour to get to Belgrade.

Mihajlovic said she expects prime ministers of China, Hungary and Serbia at Chinese summit in December in Belgrade will sign “a certain document” for the Belgrade-Budapest railroad and that study development will start based on that.

The minister also said that all infrastructure projects implementations in Serbia have been exceeding deadlines, apart from the Zemun-Borca bridge and that it was the case the state does not pledge charges against anybody because something was not done on time.

She said the state which provided funds for the projects which are running late, did not initiate a pledge before the court against those companies but it was the case the companies sue the state for instance, for delays in expropriation.