The Serbian Minister of International Economic Relations, Milan Parivodic announced Thursday that within the next five days, the Serbian Government would sign the contract on the award of concession for the construction of the Horgos-Pozega Highway with the Spanish company FCC.

At the conference of the Foreign Investors Council, Parivodic said that, in five days, the contract will be signed with the FCC, which is the sixth largest company of its kind in the world.

In early November 2006, the consortium comprising FCC and the Austrian company Alpine Mayreder won the tender for the construction of the stretch of the highway from the border with Hungary to Pozega, having offered the lowest price of EUR 1.3 billion.

The concession is being awarded for a period of 25 years and it envisages for the construction of the left lane of the highway from Horgos to Novi Sad, totaling 106 kilometers in length, the maintenance of the 68-kilometer stretch of the highway from Novi Sad to Belgrade and the designing and the construction of the highway from Belgrade to Pozega, totaling 148 kilometers in length.

The second-ranking bidder in the tender was а consortium of Serbian companies, followed by the consortium headed by the Austrian Strabag and the least favourable bid was submitted by a consortium of the French company Vinci and GNP.

The Horgos-Pozega Highway should be a part of the new road to the Montenegrin coast, the total value of which will be EUR 3.5 billion, while the Serbian section of this road should be worth approximately EUR 1.5 billion.