PM marks completion of tunneling works with champagne

PM marks completion of tunneling works with champagne

All tunnel-boring works on the road section between Ljig and Preljina are now complete, with 36 km out of the total 40 km of a full-profile highway also overlaid.

A bus took Vucic, Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlovic - who is also minister of construction, transport and infrastructure - Azerbaijan's ambassador Eldar Hasanov and reporters along the highway section.

The completion of tunneling works at Savinac, worth EUR 9.85 million, has connected the entire 40 km section.

The main contractor is Azerbaijan's AzVirt and construction works on the section, worth a total EUR 308 million, are financed by a EUR 300 million Azerbaijani loan, with the rest of the funds provided by Serbia. "The years in office are not the benchmark for this government - it is the number of kilometers of roads constructed that it will leave as a legacy," Vucic said at the ceremony, adding:

"In terms of the number of kilometers it has built, this government is greater than anyone and incomparable to anyone," Vucic said.

"Roads mean communications, factories, jobs and new life, and you road builders are restoring life in Serbia with each new kilometer," the prime minister said, thanking all workers involved in the tunneling works, as well as those working on other construction sites in Serbia.

He asked them to "continue building roads and bridges at the same pace."

"This country needs you, you are raising it from the dead," the prime minister said, noting that "Serbia lost many people in wars there and in other places," while the state had "bypassed and neglected them"

According to him, "we no longer have a right to death, wars, mistakes..." and - "least of all to standing still and not moving ourselves and Serbia."