Contract on concession for construction of Horgoš-Požega highway rejected

National Council for Infrastructure decided yesterday (July 15, 2008) that there was no reason for the contract on concession for construction of Horgoš-Požega highway with consortium "Alpine" - "Porr" to be put in effect because the additional terms introduced by that concessionaire were not in accordance with the national interest.

According to the announcement of the press service of the President of Serbia, who presided the constitutive meeting of that council, that body estimated that the concessionaire’s additional terms would significantly change the initial contract and transferred the essential costs from the concessionaire to the state of Serbia.

Among the rest, concessionaire "Alpine-Porr" asked for some additional guarantees of Republic of Serbia that the traffic frequency would be worth more than 200m EUR, the extension of deadline for construction of Horgoš-Požega highway for another four years, as well as the extension of concession from 25 to 30 years.

It was also announced that the National Council for Infrastructure was founded to coordinate and run projects in field of infrastructure in order to accelerate economic and entire development of Serbia.

It was pointed out that the Council had concluded that the basic priorities of the new Government were: the completion of Corridor 10, commencement of construction of Belgrade-South Adriatic highway and modernization of railways in Serbia.

It was added that the members of the Council would monitor realization of the projects from the announcement of tenders to the completion of works.

President of the Council is President of Serbia Boris Tadić, his deputy is Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Development Mlađan Dinkić, and the members of the Council are Minister of Infrastructure Milutin Mrkonjić, Minister of Energy and Mining Petar Škundrić, Minister of Finance Diana Dragutinović and Minister of Telecommunications and IT Society Jasna Matić.

There are also Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning Oliver Dulić, Minister of National Investment Plan Verica Kalanović, Minister of Agriculture Saša Dragin, Deputy Prime Minister for European Integrations and Minister of Science and Technological Development Božidar Đelić, as well as the President of the Executive Council of Vojvodina, Bojan Pajtić, and the Mayor of Belgrade.