An agreement has been reached on the Sarajevo-Belgrade Highway project, planned to be built between Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital of Sarajevo and Serbia's capital of Belgrade with Turkey's support. The highway will be built on the two previously discussed routes. Set to connect Sarajevo and Belgrade via two different routes, the project is reported to cost around 1.8 billion euros.
Although the project was brought up more than two years ago, the relevant authorities could not agree on the route stemming from the duality in Bosnia and Herzegovina's administration, with one side wanting the highway to run through the Tuzla province, while other insisting on the Visegrad province. Consequently, with the support of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the proposals of both sides have been accepted.
With the construction of the Sarajevo-Zenica-Tuzla-Brcko-Bijeljina-Belgrade route in particular, Tuzla, one of the most important industrial cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will be connected to the capital city through a highway after Zenica. Given that there is already a highway between Sarajevo and Zenica, the section extending from Zenica-Tuzla-Brcko-Bijeljina to Serbia's border will be 150 kilometers in length, while the Zagreb-Belgrade highway starting from the border is around 40 kilometers in length.
According to some reports from Bosnia and Herzegovina's media, the route is expected to cost about 1.8 billion euros.
On the other hand, the second route will pass through Sarajevo, Visegrad, Pozega and Belgrade. Considering that Serbia has already built a highway between Belgrade and Pozega, the remaining part is planned to be about 160 kilometers. The news previously reported by the Serbian media revealed that this route could be built at a cost of around 800 million euros.
The project is planned to be built by Turkish firms using domestic labor force through a build-operate-transfer model. The highway is expected to make a major contribution to the development of both economic relations and trade between the two countries, as well as to regional stability.
