The Serbian Minister of Economy, Predrag Bubalo, announced Thursday that an agreement was reached on the contract to award concessions for the construction of the Horgos-Pozega Highway.
Bubalo added that the contract would be signed soon as the Serbian Minister of Capital Investments, Velimir Ilic, notified the Government that an agreement was reached on all the stipulations of the contracts, that all issues have been resolved and that the contract would soon be submitted to the Government for consideration.
The deadline for signing the contract with the consortium comprising the Spanish company FCC and the Austrian Alpine Mayreder expired on March 14th, but negotiations with the Spanish company continued past that date.
Ilic announced earlier that if a contract is not signed with the first-ranking bidder, the job would then be offered to the second-ranking bidder – the consortium PORR, which had made an arrangement to do the job in cooperation with Alpine Mayreder.
The consortium comprising the Austrian Alpine Mayreder and the Spanish FCC won the tender ot award the concession for the construction of the Horgos-Pozega Highway in early November 2006, having bid the lowest price of EUR 1.5 billion.
The concession is being awarded for a period of 25 years and it envisages the construction of the left lane of the highway from Horgos to Novi Sad, totalling 106 kilometres in length, the maintenance of the 68-kilometre stretch of the highway from Novi Sad to Belgrade and the design and construction of the highway from Belgrade to Pozega, totalling 148 kilometres in length.
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.