Minister Nikolina Angelkova opens a scientific conference at UNWE
23.10.2014
Today the Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Nikolina Angelkova, together with the Rector of the University for National and World Economy Prof. Stati Statev and the Rector of "Todor Kableshkov" Higher School of Transport prof. Petar Kolev opened a scientific-practical conference "Transport in the changing world - challenges and solutions".
Minister Angelkova presented topical issues and priorities in the field of transport. In the railway sector efforts are engaged to stabilize BDZ and to gradually reform it. "We are discussing with EC DG Competition the use of Jaspers to develop a program to revitalize the railway, which is to be drafted by the end of 2015", said Nikolina Angelkova. She said this will not be just another strategy but a specific plan agreed with the European partners and supported by them, which will ensure permanence and continuity.
According to data the interest in Bulgaria as a cruise destination is growing and a total of 66 cruise ship are expected to anchor at our sea ports in 2014 resulting in over 66 000 tourists visiting the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.
"In the first nine months of 2014, Sofia Airport serviced nearly 3 million passengers, which is 10% above the figures in the previous year", said Nikolina Angelkova presenting the current topics in the field of air transport. The progress in the work on the establishing a unified system for search and rescue in airline accidents was presented. Thanks to the active position of BULATSA, our country will be able to count on about 2 million Levs per year for this activity.
The reform in the road sector is ongoing. The legislation provides that during the technical inspection the verification of vehicle taxes paid can be carried out electronically in real time. Last year, the pilot system was implemented Sofia Municipality. "This measure is already giving results and since the beginning of this year the municipality's revenues have grown by over 7 million Levs compared to the same period last year", said the Transport Minister.
Operational Program Transport 2007 - 2013 is progressing at a good pace and there is no risk of losing money at the end of 2014. All available resources have been contracted and more than 2 5 billion Levs have been repaid, which is over 63% of the program budget. The result is obvious, as under OP "Transport" the following sites have been built:
• 141 km of new motorways;
• 30.8 km of new Class I roads;
• over 13 km underground metro lines with 13 stations;
• 16 km of roads have been rehabilitated;
• 242 km railway lines have been rehabilitated.
The work on the preparation of the new OP "Transport and Transport Infrastructure" 2014 – 2020 is ongoing. Among the main challenges is prioritizing projects as the available resource is 1.9 billion Euros, together with national funding, and projects included in it as at June this year amount to about 4 billion Euros. "The main priority is the completion of Struma highway, as well as the inclusion of the whole of Hemus highway in the program. In recent years, Northern Bulgaria has grown significantly less developed compared to Southern Bulgaria, one of the main reasons being the underdeveloped infrastructure", said Nikolina Angelkova. She made it clear that the first negotiations with the European Commission were constructive, but more efforts are to be engaged so as to protect the national interest.
OP "Transport and transport infrastructure" is to finance the design of an extension of the existing bridge over the river Danube at Ruse – Giurgiu. The cross-border cooperation program Bulgaria – Romania is to finance the design of two new bridges over the river at Turnu Magurele – Nikopol and Silistra – Calarasi.
The organizers of today’s event are the "Economics of Transport" Department at the University of National and World Economy and "Todor Kableshkov" Higher School of Transport. The workshop was attended by representatives of academia, business, public administration, etc. |