The Thumana-Kashar-Rrogozhina highway will be the most costly project after the Nation's Road, as the government has programmed to finance its works through a Public-Private Concession (PPC) contract with 113 billion leks (about 900 million euros) for 72 kilometers, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.
The project is divided into two segments. The first, involving the construction of the first 20 kilometers, for the completion of which, the government has accepted the unsolicited proposal from the company GENER 2 with the value of 225.8 million euros. Negotiation of the contract between the concessionaire and the company is under way and the works are expected to start next year.While the second segment Kashar-Rrogozhina is programmed to be financed with over 84 billion leks, also through PPC concession contract, whose procedures are in the begining, with the total project cost to 113 billion leks (893 million EUR).
The cost per kilometer of the project amounts to 12.4 million euros. A report by the Islamic Bank, a financier of roads in Albania, estimated earlier that Thumana-Rrogozhina's cost was 320 million euros for its 72 kilometers. With PPC, the costs is almost tripled.
In the late 2000s, the Albanian government listed as a priority a highway in the central part of the country, respectively in Thumana-Rrogozhina to connect the new north-south highway, according to a shorter variant and to avoid traffic in this area.
The first part of this 20-kilometer segment, Thumana-Kashar, was included in the 13 primary sectoral transport strategy projects for the period 2016-2020.
The document, which received the government's approval, foresaw a cost of 92m euros for the first 20 kilometers but two years later from the current strategy, the Albanian government contracted the construction segment through PPC concession for 225m euros. The concession is won by the company Gener 2 after offering the lowest bid. The cost with which the road will be built is 2.5 times higher than the government's forecast in the document approved last year.
According to these results, Albania is among the countries with high costs in road construction. According to World Highways estimates, the highest cost of highway construction for 1 kilometer is in Austria with over 12 million euros per kilometer, Hungary with 11 million euros and Germany with over 8 million euros.