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A loan worth US$500 million from the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) will help improve road connections in India. The funding will be directed towards India's National Highways Inter-connectivity Improvement Project (NHIIP), a programme of works aimed at improving routes in some rural or remote areas of the country. The NHIIP plan involves upgrading around 1,120km of National Highways in some of the country’s the low-income states such as Bihar, Orissa and Rajasthan

Colombian contractor Mario Huertas Cotes and Costa Rican company MECO will carry out construction work on Costa Rica’s Cartagena to Barranquilla highway. The highway stretch measures some 146.7km long and the contract is worth US428.9 million. The two construction companies have come together to carry out the contract jointly and won the deal with a low priced bid.

Official data from the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reveals that in 2013, the country had the highest number of crashes since reunification. In all some 2.4 million crashes were reported to police, an increase of 0.5% from the figures recorded for 2012. But while the number of crashes grew, the number of fatalities on German roads fell to 3,339, a drop of 7.3% from 2012. This is the lowest annual road fatality rate since the country commenced compiling official records in 1953. Meanwhile the

Thailand’s Highways Department is asking the country’s interim military government to decide on a planned US$2.59 billion highway project. The four-lane highway runs along a 196km route, connecting Bang Pa-in in Ayutthaya to Nakhon Ratchasima via Saraburi. The Highways Department wants to include the project in the eight-year strategic infrastructure development plan put forward by the military government. The project could be partly funded from the 2015-2016 budget as well as through loans and a joint publ

Plans are in hand in Paraguay for the new Carmelo Peralta-Pozo Hondo highway stretch. This route lies in the country’s Chaco region and is expected to cost in the region of US$500 million to construct. Spanish contractor Ohl-Sato has shown strong interest in the work to build the new Carmelo Peralta-Pozo Hondo road. The firm does have experience of projects of this type. The route revamp is required to help regional connectivity.

In Hungary the national infrastructure development company, NIF, says that a new stretch of the M0 orbital between the number 1 road and the number 10 road will not to be constructed before 2020. An environmental permit for the project is expected to be granted in the second half of 2016. The new stretch will feature two lanes in both directions and will be 18km long. A budget for the project has yet to be announced.

The Indonesian Government is aiming to start work on 16 major infrastructure projects before October 2014. These include the development of Cilamaya Port and its access road at a cost of US$1.25 billion, the Kertajajati and Soekarno-Hatta airport projects and five toll road projects. The toll roads include the Balikpapan-Samarinda connection, the Palu-Parigi link, the Manado-Bitung Toll, the Cibitung-Cilincing road and the Trans Sumatra tolled highway. The Public Works Ministry is offering tenders valued at

Turkey has plans to construct 1,470 new bridges by 2023. This follows on from a previous bridge building programme that saw 1,635 bridges built between 2003 and 2013. The country also repaired and maintained 717 bridges in this time period, as well as renovating 124 historical bridges. At present Turkey has some 7,600 bridges measuring a total length of 428km in all. The 10 year bridge building programme between 2003 and 2013 saw a 37% increase in the total length of the country’s bridges to 311km in all. A

Bechtel and its joint-venture partner Enka have won a contract to build a 60km highway connecting Kosovo’s capital Pristina with neighbouring Macedonia. The new Route 6 highway will help improve Kosovo’s transport links, a highly important factor for the future economic development of this small, landlocked nation. Bechtel-Enka previously constructed Kosovo’s Route 7 highway, which was completed in November 2013, a whole year ahead of schedule. The Route 7 highway with Morina on the Albanian border through