Kosovo’s first highway segment to Albania ready by next October

TIRANA, Feb. 1 – The Vermice-Prishtine-Merdare road, a continuation of the Durres-Kukes highway linking Albania to Kosovo, will have its first segment open to traffic by the end of this year, Kosovo government officials have confirmed.
The highway, which is being built by Bechtel-Enka, the same US-Turkish consortium which built the Rreshen-Kalimash highway in Albania, will have its Vermice-Suhareke segment completed by next October, Kosovo Transport Minister Fatmir Limaj said during a recent inspection visit. Currently, the consortium is working on a 800 meter-long bridge, the biggest in Kosovo, part of the highway linking Kosovo to Albania and Serbia.
The Kosovo part of the road which has been nicknamed the “Highway of Nation” started in April 2010, when an official ceremony was held. The highway, set to be completed in September 2013, is 117 km long and will cost around 800 million euros.
The new highway is considered very useful for Kosovo’s economy and business. It will connect to the existing highway in Albania, providing this way a modern and fast connection of Kosovo with the Sea Port of Durres. This highway also connects the north of Kosovo with Serbia and Nis (corridor 10).
The motorway starts from Morine in the Albania border then going through Prizren, Suhareke, Duhel, Malisheve, Arlatte, Komorane, Sllatina and reaching Prishtina. It is curving around Prishtina and ending in Besi small town on the north of Prishtina.
ENKA is building 89 km of this route with total length is 103 km. Motorway will be 28 meters wide which will be 2 circular strips of 3.75 meters with an emergency lane of 2.5 meters and the green belt in median width between 3-4 meters.
The project includes the construction of 22 bridges, 61 underpass/overpasses and 9 interchanges. Apart from creating modern infrastructure to the highest European standards, accelerating economic development of country, the new highway will give landlocked Kosovo very easy access to international markets, facilitating the movement of people and goods.
Moreover this motorway will connect Kosovo to Albania in the fastest possible way increasing tourism between the two Albanian-speaking neighbouring countries.
“We will continue with the major project of Vernice-Merdare road that is a continuity of giant project of Durres-Kukes-Morine. This can bring our capitals and citizens closer. Albania is an extraordinary place with great potentials in sea tourism, Kosova is also a wonderful country with extraordinary potentials in mountain tourism,” Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said before the project kicked off.
The competition of the Kosovo part of the highway will give another impetus to the increasing Albanian-Kosovo trade exchanges. Albanian and Kosovo trade exchanges registered a significant increase in 2010 when the Durres-Kukes highway linking the two countries in the shortest possible way was made fully operational. Albanian exports to Kosovo registered a 30 percent increase in 2010, making the neighbouring country the second most important destination after Italy. INSTAT’s latest data show exports to Kosvo accounted for 10 billion lek, or 6 percent of the total exports in January-December 2010, up from 7.1 billion lek during the whole of 2009.
Meanwhile, Albanian imports from Kosovo also registered a significant 22 percent increase climbing to 3.8 billion lek up from 2.97 billion lek in 2009.