By Talha Ozturk
BELGRADE, Serbia (AA) – Croatia announced a $365-million contract on Thursday with a Turkish construction firm to build a railway along its Mediterranean corridor.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Minister of the Sea, Transport, and Infrastructure Oleg Butkovic participated in the signing ceremony with Cengiz Insaat in the capital Zagreb.
Plenkovic said the ambitious scheme in which 42 kilometers (26 miles) of rail would be lain in 42 month would be an "important strategic project for Croatia."
"This section's modernization has been neglected for a decade," he added.
Butkovic pointed out that the project would help connect the city of Rijeka in the country's west with Hungary's capital Budapest — currently the largest infrastructure project in Croatia with a total value of over $448 million.
The project with Cengiz Insaat will be financed by $363 million of EU funds.
Work is scheduled to begin in April 2020, with the its completion scheduled for October 2023.
The project will produce 42 km of two-lanes of modern rail and reconstruct seven stations and stops, seven bridges, two viaducts, 21 underpasses and overpasses, 25 km of protection walls. It will also modernize six railway-road crossings and level 11 others.
