ZAGREB, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Croatia has received three bids for the construction of the first stage of the Peljecac bridge, with binding offers submitted by the Chinese consortium China Road and Bridge Corporation, Germany's Strabag and a joint offer by the Italian company Astaldi and Turkey's IC Ictas, road operator Croatian Roads (HC) said on Friday.
Valued at 526 million euros (627.97 million U.S. dollars), the bridge has been declared a project of exceptional strategic importance for the country. The value of acceptable costs is 420 million euros, with the EU covering 85 percent of the amount.
In June, the European Commission allocated 357 million of cohesion policy funds to build a bridge in Croatia, connecting the southernmost part of the country and Dubrovnik to the rest of the mainland, giving Croatia a continuous land link that bypasses the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The new bridge will connect the Dubrovnik-Neretva County to the rest of the country, by crossing the Mali Ston Bay over the Adriatic Sea. This will facilitate a smooth flow of goods and people, especially at the peak of the tourist season.
The Neum corridor, a strip of the Adriatic Sea coastline which is a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is currently the only land-based communication route between Dubrovnik and the rest of mainland Croatia.
The deadline for the evaluation of the bids is 120 days, but HC officials said that the evaluation would start immediately so that the contractor could be selected as soon as possible.
The construction of the bridge is expected to last 36 months. All the construction work is expected to be completed by 2022.
The bridge has been planned since 2007, but politics has delayed construction works several times. Bosnia and Herzegovina has protested that the bridge would prevent large ships from entering Neum, its only sea port, disrupting its access to international waters. Enditem
