Photos: Bridge Vrla

By opening for traffic the south branch of Corridor X in Grdelica gorge on Saturday, 18.05.2019 in Vladičin Han, underneath the spectacular bridge Vrla, huge victory of construction engineers was officially celebrated in the greatest infrastructural project in our country so far – construction of the entire Corridor X in the Republic of Serbia. 

The event was attended by the President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zorana Mihjalović, members of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, representatives of the contractors and financing institutions for constructing the Corridor X, diplomatic corps and high-level officials from the country and abroad, who previously visited the entire motorway route through the Grdelica gorge. Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik also attended the ceremony as well as the Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev, numerous citizens, representatives of local self-governments and administrative regions, entrepreneurs and other guests. 

With the opening of the motorway section in the Grdelica gorge, Serbia is linked by motorway from north to south and on the entire main route of the Corridor X, from Batrovci on the Croatian border to Horgoš on the north with Hungary, all the way to Preševo on the border with Macedonia.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has stated that the motorway segment on Corridor X completed in the Grdelica gorge shows that we can overcome all difficulties even when nobody believes in that and that the construction workers deserve the greatest respect, while the country provided the financing and struggled against numerous problems during construction. The President has highlighted that the motorway is not only important for its beauty but also for foreign and national investors who will come and invest in the development of industry due to the money savings and lower transportation costs, but primarily because it will be significant for the entire Serbia and increase the standard of living.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure professor Zorana Mihajlović PhD announced that Serbia should be proud because our construction engineers produced a magnificent motorway on the most beautiful and the most difficult section in Europe and added that Corridor X was the most important road for all citizens of Serbia.

“We managed to complete the biggest project in the country which was had been for 30 years and without which neither the region nor Europe could be fully connected in terms of traffic. With the completion of Corridor X from Horgoš to Preševo, we opened a new stop-over and we will no longer look behind, only forward, towards new projects, towards connecting, faster development and better lives of our citizens”, Mihajlović said.

Corridor 10 is one of the most significant Pan-European transport corridors that passes through Serbia and connects Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece, the construction of which started as far as in 1970 in the former SFRY. Motorway route through the Grdelica gorge is the most difficult section of the south branch of Corridor X, the value of which was EUR 350 million.

South branch of Corridor X from Grabovnica to Levosoje (Project South) is 74.14 km long. On 26.30 km long section through the Grdelica gorge, 36 bridges were constructed in the total length of 5,700 m and two tunnels - Predejane and Manajle in the total length of 2,808 m.

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