Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Belinda Balluku presented on Tuesday the achievements and the plans for investments in road infrastructure along the Blue Corridor in the next mandate.

In her speech at the event “Infrastructure, Achievements and Challenges for Albania 2030”, where Prime Minister Edi Rama was also present, Balluku said that the Blue Corridor is one of the most important in pan-European transport, which connects Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece.

Balluku said that the Murriqan-Balldren segment has already a feasibility study. “The segment will conclude the border connection with Montenegro to then to the Murriqan-Balldren segment - it is an axis that has its project. There is also a detailed WBIF study and it remains to decide the method and instrument of financing this project based on the feasibility submitted to WBIF,” Balluku said.

Balluku announced that in the next two or three days the winning consortium will be announced regarding Balldren-Milot. As for the Thumanë-Milot segment, Balluku said “This is a project already completed and a contract signed for the construction of the segment”.

Meanwhile, the Thumanë-Kashar segment is a completed segment, operational from June 30, 2024. Balluku emphasized that “within 2-3 years, we will also deliver Thumanë-Milot and then Milot-Balldren”.

Regarding the route from Kashar to Lekaj, Balluku said "We have a completely new route, previously only used by the military. It is a route that connects to the Tirana bypass and then continues to the hills of Pezë-Helmës, Ndroq and to connect to the Shkumbin riverbed in Rrogozhina in Lekaj. Creating a 33.5 km route of category A, just like the Blue Corridor, and accessing these 33 kilometers at a speed of 130 km per hour, thus giving full access to the northern highway to connect it to the southern highways by avoiding the capital Tirana."

Meanwhile, she added that Blue Corridor will be connected to the Tirana bypass road, another very important work. “The first 9 km are under the inventory for construction from the Albanian Road Authority while the other 13 km are those that will be supported with EU funds and the loan, which comes from the consortium created between the European Construction Bank and the EBRD,” said Balluku.

Balluku pointed out that “in the same corridor we have the last part, which connects the Kashar-Lekaj segment with the already completed Fier bypass road, which is the contract from Lekaj to Fier, an existing route, is the old highway, which will be preserved in some of the segments by eliminating roundabouts that create angles more closed than 90 degrees, with some new segments that will be added to these kilometers”. According to her, the entire Blue Corridor is accompanied by parallel roads.