New highway to cross Rhodope Mountains – deputy minister

13:37 Tue 03 Jun 2008 - Elena Koinova

A new highway would cross the Rhodope Mountains, Bulgarian news agency BTA quoted Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Dimcho Mihalevski as saying on June 2.

The highway will be the sole infrastructure project in Bulgaria to set out from scratch. All other infrastructure to get underway would refer to the extension of Trakiya, Maritsa, Lyulin and Hemus highways.

The road will connect the town of Gotse Delchev, in south-western Bulgaria, with Kurdjali, in south-eastern Bulgaria, with interim points being Dospat, Borino, Devin, Smolyan and Madan.

According to experts, quoted by Dnevnik daily, the highway would rather be a second-class road. They added, however, that it would represent an important transport project that would run parallel to the border and would serve as a hub between the Trakiya and Maritsa highways, as well as with the Ilinden border checkpoint.

According to Dimcho Mihalevski, the project would be a project to be undertaken by Bulgarian and Greek partners. Currently, Bulgaria and Greece are in talks on financing for the project, which has passed through the drafting stage. Ideally, Bulgaria would commit 50 million leva under the Regional Development operational programme of the European Union whereas Greece would give 30 million euro, Mihalevski said.

In related news, Mihalevski met the mayor of Doupnitsa and made clear that Strouma highway would not pass through the south-western town for lack of technical capacity. For this reason, the road would comprise two roads to the south and north of Doupnitsa.

At the same time, Regional Development Minister Assen Gagaouzov and Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski announced they would file a proposal to finance Trakiya highway. The Finance Ministry had been fine-tuning the proposal and a third would be used to build the highway. The financing proposal would tackle the three lots between Stara Zagora and Karnobat.

The construction of all three road sections are due to get underway in September and would be completed in 2010, Gagaouzov added.