A deadline for the construction of the Miladinovci-Stip highway has been officially extended until late September 2018 under a contract signed Tuesday by officials of the Macedonian government and the contractor, China’s Sinohydro company.
“With this move, the government is demonstrating its commitment to completing the infrastructural project, which will be immensely beneficial for the citizens and the economy in Macedonia,” concluded Deputy PM for economic affairs Koco Angjusev and Minister of Transport and Communications Goran Sugareski, who signed the contract’s annex with Yang Fan, Sinohydro’s representative in Macedonia.
The annex was signed after amendments had been adopted to a law on implementing infrastructural projects for the construction of the highways connecting Miladinovci and Stip and Kicevo and Ohrid.
According to Angjusev and Sugareski, the government wants to build the highway section in a legal procedure. As a result, Parliament passed the necessary amendments, the government said in a press release.
Some 94% is completed so far of the 47-km highway section between Miladinovci and Sveti Nikole in eastern Macedonia. The project is estimated to cost EUR 206 million. DPMNE has stated the project should be wrapped up by end of 2017, however, the SDS stopped the project alltogether, and are now figuring out ways how to extended for at least a year.
SDS Minister Sugareski said talks would be launched with Sinohydro to extend the deadline for the construction of the highway linking Kicevo and Ohrid in southwestern Macedonia. Most likely, the current deadline (31 January 2018) will be missed.
Under the existing contract, the 57-km Kicevo-Ohrid highway which is also nearly complete is estimated at EUR 374 million. According to a new estimation for a project that’s essentially completed, additional funds – namely EUR 120 million – will have to be singled out to ‘complete the project’.
