Serbia’s General Traffic Plan to be finished prior to end of year 2009

- The European Commission will hand the General Traffic Plan for Serbia to the Ministry of Infrastructure of Serbia by the end of year 2009 – it has been announced today (March 4, 2009) at the meeting dedicated to that plan.

The designing of that master plan is financed by European Union, it has been implemented by the consortium of three Italian companies and one local company, led by Italian “Italferr”, since June 2008, and the plan should be the platform for elaboration of traffic development projects prior to year 2027.

According to the information presented by the Programme Manager of the delegation of European Commission in Serbia, Enrico Maglia, the investment of 5.1 billion EUR within the next 15 to 20 years is necessary for modernization and construction of Serbian railways, 2.5 billion EUR of which for the works on “Corridor 10”.

According to Maglia’s presentation, total of 2.6 billion EUR is needed for construction of two-gage railway and electrification on “Corridor 10”. It is stated that Serbia has 3,809 kilometers of railway tracks, 276 km of which are electrified two-gage railways.

According to the presentations from that meeting, about 7 billion EUR is needed for development of road infrastructure in that period.

The State Secretary within the Ministry of Infrastructure, Aleksandar Cvetanović, said that it was expected that the financial institutions, led by the World Bank, would approve about 1.18 billion EUR worth of loan for infrastructure to Serbia in mid-May.

According to the plan for construction of road and railway infrastructure in the period 2008-2012, which was adopted by the Government of Serbia, total of 2.9 billion EUR will be invested in construction of roads prior to year 2012, 400m EUR of which will be provided from the loan of the World Bank, 540m EUR from the loan of the European Investment Bank, and 150m EUR from the loan of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Delegacija Evropske unije u Republici Srbiji Beograd

Svetska Banka-WB Beograd

Vlada Republike Srbije

EBRD Evropska banka za obnovu i razvoj

Traffic Master Plan in Serbia

Italferr Italy

Enrico Maglia

Corridor 10

Aleksandar Cvetanović