Serbia in talks with Chinese firms over Corridor 11 completion

Serbia will enter into talks with two Chinese companies chosen through a tender process that expired this month for restarting construction on the stalled Corridor 11 motorway.

Serbian Minister of Construction Zorana Mihajlovic said 3034 Shandong Hi-Speed Group and the 3366 China Road and Bridge Corporation qualified for tender participation.

Work includes construction and maintenance of 17.6km of motorway near Belgrade, between Surcin and Obrenovac as welll as the 31km Preljina-Pozega road and maintenance of the 103km Obrenovac-Preljina road.

The Belgrade-Pozega road will connect Serbia with Montenegro to the west and Romania to the east. China's Exim Bank approved a loan of €295.06 million for construction of the 50km road between Lajkovac and Ljig as well as Obrenovac and U, on Corridor 11.

Part of Corridor 11 was to be built under a concession awarded to the Austrian firm 2859 Alpine and Romanian company 3976 PORR, as well maintenance work for the Novi Sad-Belgrade highway. However, with the collapse of Alpine in mid-2013, the contract had to be renegotiated.