Arab banks to fund Tirana-Elbasan highway

TIRANA, Feb. 15 – The Tirana-Elbasan highway, government’s major infrastructural project during this term of office, will be financed by Arab banks. Finance Ministry sources quoted by local media this week said the new highway, which is in the tendering process will be financed by the IDB, the Kuwait Fund and the Abu Dhabi banks.
Sources said the Arab banks have agreed to finance the whole project and lend up to 400 million USD but the Albania government will borrow 350 million USD, the estimated cost of the highway.
Both the government and the Arab banks seem to have in principle agreed to the terms of the 20-year loan whose interest rate will not be more than 5 percent.
The European Investment Bank, which is the European Union’s financing institution, had also expressed it interest to finance the road.
Some 12 companies have recently qualified for the final phase of the tender government has launched to build the highway tunnel.
Last month, some 26 Albanian and foreign companies submitted bids to build a tunnel linking capital Tirana to neighboring central Albanian city of Elbasan in the shortest possible way. Sources from the General Directorate of Roads, which is the contracting authority, said well known companies such as the Bechtel-Enka consortium which built the Rreshen-Kalimash tunnel linking Albania to Kosovo, and several other Italian, Greek, German companies participated in the initial phase of the tender.
According to Public Procurement Agency, the price tag for the tunnel construction is 150 million euros VAT excluded and 180 million dollars VAT included.
The tunnel is expected to be completed within 18 months once the contract has been signed and possibly open to traffic within 2012, one year before the mandate of the ruling coalition expires in order to avoid electoral campaign claims, said Prime Minister Sali Berisha in a meeting with his Democratic Party lawmakers last year.
The Tirana-Elbasan highway will be the first segment of southern road axis and an important hub of the Corridor 8 project with Italy, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
The highway, expected to cut the distance to Elbasan to 31 kilometres, down from 48 currently, will have four lanes and two tunnels, 2.3 and 2.1 km long each, saving passengers to the central Albanian city of Elbasan 40 minutes compared to the current mountainous road.
Designed to follow the shortest possible trajectory, the new highway will have a maximum speed of 110 km/h, taking passengers only 15 to 20 minutes to arrive in Elbasan. It is considered the biggest infrastructural project government intends to build in this four-year term after the Durres-Kukes-Morine highway linking Albania to Kosovo, whose works were only fully completed last October after the opening of the second Thirre tunnel.