Boagiu said 180 kilometers of highway on the Pan-European Corridor IV will be finished by 2013, with one exception – the section linking Sibiu to Pitesti, which will be built in public-private partnership.
The minister said the European Commission signed highway construction financing contracts worth over EUR600 million and extra EUR500 million will be contracted by the end of the year.
Boagiu and Prime Minister Emil Boc on Friday morning inspected works on the Arad-Timisoara highway section.
Transport Ministry state secretary Eusebiu Pistru said in July works on the highway sections linking western Nadlac to central Sibiu, part of the Pan-European Transport Corridor IV, would start in September or October and would be finished in 2013 and 2016.
The construction of highways Nadlac-Arad (38.9 km), Timisoara-Lugoj (35.6 km), Deva-Orastie (32.8 km), Orastie-Sibiu (82 km) and a 28-kilometer long section of the Lugoj-Deva highway will be finished in 2013, Pistru said back then.
Works on the remaining 80 kilometers of the Lugoj-Deva highway will be finished in 2016, he added.
Pistru also highlighted that on the Corridor IV’s Romanian sector, spanning from Arad to the southeastern city of Constanta, only one highway section lacked financing, namely the Sibiu-Ramnicu Valcea-Pitesti sector.
The construction of this section costs about EUR3 billion and the ministry is looking for a public-private partnership to start works, added the state secretary.