The Austrian company Strabag AG was selected to build the railway line from Kumanovo to Beljakovce while the Turkish company Gülermak will be building the second phase of the line starting from Beljakovce to Kriva Palanka of the railway corridor 8 toward Bulgaria. The agreements for building both phases of the railway line were signed today which is a capital infrastructural project where 200 million EUR were invested.
At today’s press conference, the Macedonian Minister of Transport and Communications Blagoj Bochvarski stressed that the railway line in the length of 31 km between Kumanovo and Beljakovce will cost 40 million EUR and will be finished in a period of 2 years i.e. by 2024. The railway line from Beljakovce to Kriva Palanka with a length of 34 km will cost 155 million EUR. The deadline for its construction is 3 years i.e. it will be finished by 2025.
The railway line from Kumanovo to Kriva Palanka will be built with a grant from the EU’s Western Balkans Investment Framework in the amount of 68,5 million EUR, as well as a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Across the whole line from Kumanovo to Kriva Palanka, a single-track electrified railway line will be built with 5 railway stations and 9 railway stops. Across the railway line, 12 bridges will be built.
The Director of the Public Enterprise for railway infrastructure stressed that so far, over 50% of the complete financial construction for the building of the railway line from Kriva Palanka to the Bulgarian border has been secured. The complete project documentation has already been completed for this railway line. 155 million EUR have been secured for the third part of the railway line toward Bulgaria from the Western Balkans Investment Framework and an additional 61 million EUR from the EU’s IPA program. As a result, for the last phase, the state has 216 million EUR out of the necessary 406 million EUR for finalizing the most difficult phase of this capital project.
