Vesic: Tender procedure launched, Belgrade-Nis high-speed railway will be finished by the end of 2028

Pre-qualification for contractors for the second and third sections will be announced in May, and for the first section in November, at the latest

Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Goran Vesic, said today that an invitation to interested parties for supervision of the construction of the high-speed railway between Belgrade and Nis has been published, which started the tender procedure for the selection of supervisor of the construction of the 230-kilometer long railway, with the works set to start in 2025.

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Vesic was appearing on television when said that three sections will be built and that pre-qualification for contractors for the second and third sections will be announced in May, and for the first section in November, at the latest.

"The construction of the railway from Belgrade to Nis will take three and a half years, because unlike the high-speed railway to Subotica, where we completely shut down (rail) traffic, here traffic will not be closed, instead works will be done in 'windows', i.e. with periodic traffic suspensions. We cannot close the railway to Nis, it would stop the entire railway traffic along the entire route from Southern Europe towards Central Europe," said Vesic.

He added that the railway in question will be ready by the end of 2028 and pointed out that when it's done, it will take 100 minutes to reach Nis from Belgrade by train.

"In the meantime, we are already working on the Nis-Brestovac railway, 23 kilometers, and we have 135 kilometers left to the border with North Macedonia and 50 kilometers through that country, to connect Nis and Skopje," said Vesic.

He recalled that, when Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was in Belgrade recently - at the suggestion of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic - Greece also joined this high-speed rail project.

Vesic said that Greece is now reconstructing the railway from Athens to Thessaloniki, and that a section from Thessaloniki to Idomeni, 76 kilometers long, will also be built.

"This means that all that remains is to finish the part from Skopje to Idomeni, and since the Hungarians will finish their part of the railway from Budapest to the Serbian-Hungarian border by 2026, this means that we will have 1,512 kilometers of (high speed) railway between Budapest and Athens via Subotica. Novi Sad, Belgrade, Nis, Skopje and Thessaloniki," said Vesic.

He reminded that 76 kilometers of high-speed rail between Belgrade and Novi Sad have been built, and that work is underway on 108 kilometers between Novi Sad and Subotica, which, he added, will be completed by the end of July, while from September 15, testing should begin and last up to three months.

"We expect that the first train from Belgrade to Subotica will depart between December 1 and 15, and the journey between those two cities by high-speed train will take one hour and 10 minutes," said Vesic.

He stressed that the high-speed railway between Budapest and Athens will completely change the way of life of people in Serbia, Hungary, North Macedonia and Greece because, he added, it will be the exit from this part of Europe towards Central Europe.

The minister emphasized the importance of construction and reconstruction of the railway network and noted that since 1976, when the Belgrade-Bar railway was completed, not a single kilometer of new railroad was built in Serbia all the way until 2012.

Meanwhile from 2012 until today, 134 kilometers have been built. He added that from 1976 to 2012, 31 kilometers of railways were reconstructed, while from 2012 to 2023, this number was 754.9 kilometers.

Vesic also said that intensive work is being done to introduce a common travel tag between Serbia and Greece, which should be launched by June.

He recalled that an integrated tag with North Macedonia is already functional, while the same is being negotiated with Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy.

(Telegraf Biznis)