Soroca and Hancesti roads to be repaired by next September

Three road sections will be reconstructed in Moldova by September 2012. The State Road Administration on Friday signed contracts with three international companies that will rehabilitate the national roads M2 Chisinau-Soroca (two sections) and R3 Chisinau-Hancesti. The works will start on March 21. The guarantee for the repaired roads will be 15 years, Info-Prim Neo reports. Minister of Transport and Road Infrastructure Anatol Salaru said that there will be spent 400 million lei that was borrowed from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank. The works on the two sections of the Chisinau-Soroca road will be executed by two Italian companies, while on the Chisinau-Hancesti road – by a Portuguese company. Under the contracts, 90% of the workforce must be from Moldova. The three companies were selected at a tender contest that involved 21 bidders. Besides the three road sections, in 2011 there will be repaired other street portions at a cost of 600 million lei. “Regretfully, we have 4,000 kilometers of road covered with gravel only and we need large sums of money for rehabilitating them,” said Anatol Salaru. Moldova has 168,000 kilometers of road, 10,000 km of which are of national importance.