Slovenian SCT starts work on motorway

TIRANA, Feb.17 – The Albanian transport ministry’s spokeswoman Erla Mehilli said that Slovenian construction company SCT had started building a $11.7 million (8.9 million euro) stretch of motorway in northern Albania. This is part of a key transport corridor linking the country with the neighboring U.N.-run Kosova. SCT won an open international tender closed late last year and the contract was signed last month. The company will build a nine-kilometer stretch between Milot and Shkurraj, both in the north. Construction is scheduled to complete in early 2009, according to the statement issued by the transport ministry. The World Bank, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Albanian government are the donors for the estimated cost of $41 million .The whole segment was divided into three lots as work on the other two is expected to begin this spring. The Milot-Shkurraj stretch is part of a larger, 26-kilometre highway between Milot and Rreshen that forms part of the Albania-crossing Durres-Kukes-Morine highway designed to link Albania’s largest Adriatic port of Durres and Prishtina, the administrative centre of Kosovo.