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Romania gets EIB funds

Funding worth nearly €600 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) could help improve Romania’s national road network.
February 20, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Funding worth nearly €600 million from the 1054 European Investment Bank (EIB) could help improve Romania’s national road network.

This is an important step as Romania’s roads are widely acknowledged as being the worst in the EC with the country’s network having been described as “a shambles” by European transport officials.

The 2871 Romanian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure has invested heavily in road studies but so far little or no new construction has been carried out while the majority of the network remains in extremely poor condition.

The EIB will lend €77 million under the Rehabilitation Project V, which will target improvements to 199km of roads, and €500 million through Project VI to upgrade 660km of roads. Romania’s geographic location makes it an important through route for goods being transported between Europe and Turkey.

Meanwhile, a consortium led by Austrian construction company 945 Strabag has obtained a contract worth €220.6 million for the construction of a motorway in Romania. The contract, signed with Romanian motorway company 2870 CNADNR, is for the 33km motorway stretch between the central Romanian towns of Deva and Orastie. It will include 15 bridges and ten underpasses and should be complete by the end of 2012, and is part of the fourth pan-European corridor leading from the Hungarian/Romanian border crossing Nadlac through the Romanian capital Bucharest to Constanta on the Black Sea.

The 2465 European Commission is co-financing the contract with €133.6 million.

Romania plans to build four additional motorway stretches as part of the fourth corridor with a total length of 270km and a value of €670 million.

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