The construction of highways in the countries of the region is accompanied by high prices, breaking deadlines, unknown who is building them, and often political marketing.
In July 2022, Montenegro opened the first, 43-kilometer long section of the Podgorica-Mateševo highway, with a delay of three years, which, with interest and other costs, will cost around 1,2 billion euros.
It is the last country in the Balkans that got a highway. Before it, many less developed neighboring countries, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia, had highway networks.
Author: Jelena Bujišić
The story of the Montenegrin highway officially began in May 2007.
"We need a highway to the north, not documentation about it", was the then categorical president of the DPS, Milo Đukanović, at the party congress, advocating that the government of the then prime minister Željko Šturanović pay special attention to the north, from start to finish completed a good part of the highway section of his mandate.
However, the first kilometers were obtained only 15 years later. In the meantime, six governments changed, the construction contract with the Croatian "Constructor" from 2009 failed, then there were several negotiations with other contractors, and in 2014, the Chinese CRBS was chosen without a tender, based on an intergovernmental contract.
The construction of the first section was followed by poor project preparation, forgetting one loop, numerous subsequent works, the corona virus pandemic... - all of which had the effect that, instead of four years, the road would be completed in seven years, two months and three days.
In December last year, the new Prime Minister Milojko Spajić said at a meeting with businessmen that Montenegro has a poor traffic infrastructure and that this must be a priority. He announced that at the beginning of 2024, six tenders will be published for conceptual projects of sections of highways and expressways, that in September of this year, the construction of the continuation of the section Mateševo - Andrijevica will begin, and by the end of 2030, both highways will be built through Montenegro and four expressways.
He also said that Montenegro does not have time to wait for promised money from EU funds for the Mateševo - Andrijevica section, as well as that it will start construction with money from its own budget.
"We cannot wait. We will go for a quick tender. Poof! Poof! And '24. in September I want to see the Ashes in the country", Spajić said in December.
According to the data from the budget presentation for 24/2024, the construction of the new section, 26 kilometers long, would cost 500 million euros. The estimated construction period was two and a half years.
"Monteput", a state-owned company that manages the first section of the highway, and which is tasked with the Government's decisions to prepare projects for the continuation of the construction of highways and expressways, since December last year, has announced five tenders for the development of conceptual solutions or projects of new sections. A public call for preliminary solutions for the intersection of the Bar - Boljare highway with the Adriatic - Ionian highway and the expressway in the area of Paštrovačka Gora has been announced. The Adriatic - Ionian highway comes from BiH, near Grahov it enters Montenegro, and then through the Katunska and Lješanska nahijas it comes to the vicinity of Farmak. On the current main road Podgorica - Cetinje. At that point, it would intersect with the highway Bar - Boljare - Belgrade, but also the expressway that would go to Budva, where it would connect to the future coastal highway.
"Monteput" also announced a public call for the development of a conceptual project of the highway section Andrijevica - Berane - Boljare (border with Serbia), from where it would continue towards Požega and further towards Belgrade. In March 2022, Serbia made official the start of the construction of its last section towards Montenegro, Požega - Duga Poljana, with a completion date of four years. Delays have already been announced, and the section to Požega, whose first deadline was December 2021, has not been completed.
A public invitation was also issued for the preparation of conceptual solutions for the section of the high-speed road from the border with Croatia near Herceg Novi to Budva, with a crossing over the Bay of Kotor. This solution should answer whether the bay will be bridged, as well as whether it will be a bridge or a tunnel.
"Monteput" is also looking for a conceptual design designer for the highway section Andrijevica - Peć, the section Andrijevica - Čakor, as well as for the design of the fast road Crnča (a place near Bijelo Polje) - Pljevlja - the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. These two sections are part of a unique international traffic corridor that would go from Sarajevo to Goražde in BiH and the border with Montenegro, and then continue along the route Pljevlja - Bijelo Polje - Andrijevica - Čakor - Peć - Priština, and further through Macedonia and Greece to Istanbul. This road would be the shortest connection between BiH and Turkey, both countries are interested in its construction, and it was discussed at the recent international conference in Istanbul.
Prime Minister Spajić said that it is not a problem to find money for the implementation of all these traffic projects and that Montenegro can easily and cheaply borrow for the construction of infrastructure. He also stated that the construction of the entire network of highways and expressways through Montenegro would cost between six and eight billion.
Who builds highways in Serbia and how much does it cost?
Addresses by President Aleksandar Vučić to the citizens of Serbia on any current topic have become unthinkable without mentioning highways and other types of sections that are being built during his "guard".
Paradoxically, although it is clear to them that enumerating infrastructure projects will be an essential premise of every televised appearance, most of them do not know how much all these roads cost, who is building them and when they will be finished.
On the other hand, while the president lowers the kilometers as his own successes, the numbers of those projects are increasing day by day, and the expert public warns that delaying the end of the works and increasing the bill is the ideal way to "embed" political actors.
Thus, one of the most attractive projects at the moment, the so-called Vojvodina smiley (road direction Bački Breg-Sombor-Kula-Vrbas-Srbobran-Bečej-Kikinda-Nakovo), should cost almost two billion euros for a route 186 kilometers long.
That is why economists believe that it is a question of a very high price, because the "Smile of Vojvodina" is not a highway but a high-speed road. According to this calculation, it turns out that the price of a kilometer of expressway is about 12 million euros, while, for example, a kilometer of the "Fruškogorsk Corridor" highway costs about 12,6 million euros.
Works on that route started in mid-December of the previous year, and they are being carried out, like most similar projects, by the Chinese. Specifically, we are talking about the company "China Construction Eighth Engineering Division", for which this is also the first project in Serbia.
This year's "momentum for the expansion of road infrastructure" will also continue with the construction of the Belgrade-Zrenjanin-Novi Sad highway, which will connect Belgrade with Zrenjanin and Novi Sad.
Works on the 105-kilometer route will also be performed by the Chinese company "Shandong Highspeed", and the value of the contract that Serbia signed with them is around four billion euros. After the completion of these works, the authorities claim that the journey from Belgrade to Zrenjanin will take half an hour, and from Zrenjanin to Novi Sad much shorter.
Also, although the Minister of Transport Goran Vesić announced at the end of the summer of 2023 that the works on the Sremska Rača-Kuzmin highway, 18 kilometers long, will be finished by the end of the previous year, the works will continue in the current year as well. This section represents the first part of the Belgrade-Sarajevo highway, and the estimated value of the works performed by the Turkish company "Tašjapi" is about 225 million euros, which means about 12,5 million per kilometer.
A project that is also still ongoing, and whose completion is constantly delayed, is the Moravian Corridor. The construction of the Pojate-Preljina highway with a length of 112,3 kilometers began five years ago, and according to the first announcements, the works were supposed to be completed in 2023.
The American consortium "Bechtel-Enka" was chosen as the bearer of the construction of this route, which was also the only one to submit an offer at the public invitation for the construction of the Moravian Corridor. Therefore, the Transparency Serbia organization questioned the objectivity of the award of the mentioned project.
In addition, what makes the public doubt the transparency of this investment is the fact that the deadline for the completion of the works moves from year to year. How much it will cost us in the end is unknown, but for this project, according to N1, Serbia already has two confirmed loans in the amount of around 1,6 billion euros.
The section for the completion of which drivers have been waiting for years, and for which Vučić announced that it will be finished this year, is represented by the Pakovrača - Požega route, which should connect Čačak, Lučane and Požega, i.e. Moravički and Zlatiborski districts.
The residents of Pakovraća have been protesting for years because of this same section, because, as they claim, their land was taken from them for the purpose of building the highway, and they still haven't paid for it, even at the price of 150 euros per acre.
The estimated value of these works is around 450 million euros, and the contractor is the Chinese company CRBC ("China Communications Construction Company"), which, according to RSE, is on the blacklist of the World Bank and the USA due to suspicions of being involved in corrupt activities in the Philippines.
In addition to the above, the construction of the Niš-Beloljin highway, or the "Peace Highway", is underway. The end of work on this 37-kilometer long project is forecast for 2026, and it is estimated that the bill for the road from Niš to Merdar will amount to more than 225 million euros. The money for financing this route was provided through a WBIF investment grant in the amount of 40,6 million euros and a loan from the EBRD and the EIB in the amount of 185 million euros, while 30 million will be allocated from the budget of our country.
Another project that the government likes to talk about is the Fruškogorsk Corridor, on which the completion of the works, despite the president's promise from 2020 that it will be ongoing, is scheduled for 2026. And in the case of this route, the bill will be expressed in hundreds of millions of euros.
Specifically, for 48 kilometers of road, the Chinese company CRBC will be paid at least 606 million euros, which reduces the figure of over 12 million euros per kilometer of road.
Therefore, it remains unclear why, for example, a kilometer of the Fruškogorsk Corridor costs much more than a kilometer of the Niš-Merdare highway.
After all, the latest announcements by the President of Serbia suggest that two new highways will be built from Požega, one to Montenegro, that is, to Boljari, and the other Belgrade-Sarajevo highway.
We remind you that, according to official information, Serbia invested three billion euros in infrastructure last year, and that it is investing four billion euros this year.
BiH - billions spent, but the highway is still a dream
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 232,5 kilometers of highways have been built so far, according to data obtained by "Oslobođenje" from the State Ministry of Communications and Transport.
The Ministry states that the management, construction and maintenance of the road network is carried out in accordance with different levels of competence. Thus, in FBiH, highways are managed by JP Auto-ceste FBiH, and in RS, highways are managed by JP Auto-ceste RS.
According to the data we received from the FBiH Highways, 126,5 km of highways have been built in the Federation so far on the sections Svilaj - Odžak, Zenica sever - Bradina and Zvirovići - Bijača. The suspension of the Buna - Počitelj section has also been completed, and this section will be put into traffic after the completion of activities on the Počitelj - Zvirovići and Tunel Kvanj - Buna sections.
The most significant project, Corridor 5c, has been under construction for 23 years. More than 126,5 billion euros were invested in the aforementioned 1,5 km of highway on the corridor.
"There is an investment cycle worth about 500 million euros for the construction of a new 61 km of highway. The most important elements that affect the total cost of construction of individual sections are the geological and morphological conditions of the terrain where the route passes. Design solutions, the number of lengths of buildings (bridges, viaducts and tunnels), as well as the length and complexity of supporting structures to ensure the stability of the highway body depend on this. So, for example, the construction of the Svilaj - Odžak section cost 6,5 million euros per kilometer. This section is 10,4 km long and was built in a plain where, apart from a few underpasses and overpasses, a rest area, a toll booth and two interchanges, there were no demanding facilities on the route," it was explained.
On the other hand, the Klopče - Donja Gračanica section of 5,8 km, which consists of 60 percent of buildings (five viaducts and two tunnels), and the rest of the route is located partly in a cut and partly in an embankment, the construction cost 25 million euros per kilometer.
It should also be noted that there has been a significant increase in the prices of raw materials and the price of labor during the last years, which also contributes to the significantly increased final price of the construction of the highway, emphasizes the Auto-ceste FBiH. 61 km of the corridor is under construction, and by the beginning of the summer season, the Počitelj - Zvirovići section will be put into traffic, and Bosnia and Herzegovina will get another 11 km of highway.
"On the southern part, apart from the section Počitelj - Zvirovići, the plan is to start work on the sections Mostar south - Tunnel Kvanj, Tunnel Kvanj - Buna, Mostar north - Mostar south and the Prenj tunnel by the end of 2024. The start of work on these sections will bring a new 40 km of active construction sites. In the northern part of the FBiH, 50 km of highway in the corridor is under construction. On this part, the Ozimica - Poprikusa section has yet to be allocated, so the entire northern part of the corridor will be in one of the construction phases. The strategic goal of the new administration of the FBiH Highway is for the entire northern corridor to be completed in the summer of 2026," it was pointed out.
The construction of the highway is financed from long-term, internationally favorable loans, then from the own resources of the FBiH Highway, and essential support in the construction of the highway on corridor 5c is EU grant funds on all sections, the construction of which is financed from EBRD funds. and the EIB.
"In addition to domestic companies (Hering dd Široki Brijeg and Euro Asfalt doo Sarajevo), companies from Turkey ("Cengiz Insaat", "HGG Insaat Anonim Sirketi"), Azerbaijan ("Azvirt LLC") and China (CSCEC, "Sinohydro") are working on the construction of the corridor Corporation Limited”, “Powerchina Roadbridge Group”). Auto-Ceste FBiH conducts public open international tenders for the construction of all sections of the corridor, to which companies from all over the world can apply," they state in Auto-Ceste FBiH.
In the RS, 106 km of highways have been built and are in operation. As the Acting Director of Highways of the RS Nedeljko Ćorić stated earlier, the construction of the highway from Belgrade to Sarajevo and Banjaluka is proceeding according to plan, and the works have advanced the most on the construction of the section from Rača to Bijeljina, in which nearly 83 million have been invested so far. KM. The construction of the highway Belgrade - Banjaluka, which is part of the future highway Belgrade - Sarajevo - Belgrade, is taking place in accordance with the planned dynamics. This project is divided into three sections, and it is currently being built on the route from Rača to Bijeljina, and that work has been entrusted to a consortium consisting of "Integral inženjering" from Latakia, "Srbija auto-put" from Belgrade and the Institute of Civil Engineering.
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