Picture: FOCUS News Agency

A trans-Albanian motorway will soon connect Prishtina to Tirana
 

14 October 2012 | 08:25 | FOCUS News Agency

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Pristina. On November 27th Kosovo and Albania will jointly celebrate the 100-anniversary of the creation of the Albanian state. On the occasion Prishtina and Tirana will be connected by the newly built 61 km Kosovo section of the trans-Albanian motorway “Morine-Gjurgjice”, Preportr informs.
The trans-Albanian motorway, which will connect Albanian main Adriatic port Durres with Kosovo Merdare north-east cross-border check point with Serbia, is part of the trans-European Corridor no.8, now passing (modified) via Nish and connecting Bulgarian Black sea port of Bourgas with the Mediterranean.
The project is an extension of the Albanian motorway construction, which began in 2006, completing 171 kilometres on Albanian side and now adding another 90 kilometres on Kosovo territory for an estimated cost of 750 million euro from a total of 1 billion American infrastructure projects’ grant for Kosovo. When completed, the motorway will reduce travelling time from Prishtina to Durres to 3.5 hours from the current 5 hours. For Kosovo, construction of the motorway has additional importance as it will provide direct access to the Adriatic-Ionian highway.
American Bechtel and Turkish Enka have been selected as contractors on the project, work on which began in April 2010 with a completion date of September 2013.