January 10 (SeeNews) – The European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide financing for a railway section connecting the Adriatic coast side city of Durres to the central town of Rrogozhina, the country’s infrastructure ministry said on Wednesday.
Of the total estimated investment value of 120.5 million euro ($132 million), some 62 million euro will be financed through a European Union grant, whereas the remainder will be covered by loans provided by the EBRD and EU’s lending arm, European Investment Bank (EIB), the ministry told SeeNews in an emailed statement.
In 2021, the project was initially estimated to cost around 77.5 million euro, but the stakeholders have had to re-evaluate investment plans due to an increase in construction costs in the recent years, as well as the addition of a 20-million-euro investment for the electrification of the segment, the ministry noted.
The project for the Durres-Rrogozhine railway section is part of a larger EU-funded project to build the Corridor VIII’s Durres – Pogradec – Lin – North Macedonia border railway line. According to EU’s regional investment arm, the Western Balkans Investment Framework, the total value of this cross-country railway line is seen at 291 million euro, co-funded by the Albanian government with a 25 million euro contribution, and a 125 million euro financing from other unspecified sources.
Corridor VIII is a route stretching about 1,500 kilometres from the port of Durres in the west to Bulgaria’s ports of Varna and Burgas in the east.
($=0.913 euro)
