The right decisions are made through active dialogue between the state and the business, announced the Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Ivaylo Moskovski at the opening of the conference "Strategic Infrastructure and Investments - Bulgaria 2017", which is being held today.
For the construction of transport infrastructure our country uses mainly funds from OP on Transport and Transport Infrastructure, Connecting Europe Facility and the national budget, said Minister Moskovski. "The results achieved within the last programming period eloquently indicate that OP on "Transport" is a successful program. In general, the balance shows - 500 km of railway lines reconstructed, 260 km of new motorways and 50 km of first class roads, 20 metro stations and 21 km of metro lines, an intermodal terminal, three railway stations, traffic management systems along the Danube River and in the Black Sea aquatory built ", he added.
"We finance mainly 6 large projects under OPTTI, which represent 88% of the program's resources. These are Lot 3 of “Struma” Motorway, Elin Pelin - Ihtiman railway line, Phase 2 of the Plovdiv - Burgas railway line, as well as the construction of the third beam of the Sofia metro. The extreme complexity of these projects from technical and engineering point of view requires joint efforts by the government and the industry to implement them within the set deadline", said the Minister.
Minister Moskovski said also that the most important thing this year is to meet all legal requirements and to find a solution for passing through the most critical 20 km of the "Struma" Motorway. "I hope that by the end of the year we will receive the support of the European Commission and next year we will start the procedure for choosing a contractor and construction because "Struma" Motorway has strategic importance for the whole of Europe", he said. In the rail sector, it is a priority to carry out the procedures for selecting contractors by the end of 2017 and begin the actual construction of the sections at the beginning of next year.
"The construction of the Sofia metro within this programming period is one of the most successful projects, funded under OPTTI. A week ago the EC allocated 86.8 million EUR to the project and once again praised the results achieved during the construction of the first two metro lines", said the Minister.
"The other instrument that plays a key role in complementing investment, is Connecting Europe Facility. So far we have successfully defended 7 transport projects amounting to 294 million EUR and the free resource currently are avilable for Bulgaria is 111 million EUR. Within days we expect the results of the last call, under which we have submitted 4 projects totaling to 207 million EUR. These include the development of the Plovdiv railway junction and the construction of the section Kalotina - Sofia Motorway. Our goal is to connect the Serbian with theTurkish and the Greek borders by high-speed rail and motorway routes by 2022", Ivaylo Moskovski commented.
"One of the political commitments we have made is the development of port and airport infrastructure through the concession model. Thus, the ownership remains public and at the same time are secured serious investments", said Moskovski and added that he expects the restart of the concession procedure of Sofia Airport by September.