Skopje, 12 May 2026 (MIA) – Macedonia is investing currently €2.1 billion in Corridor 8 road infrastructure alone and in the next five to six months it will invest over three billion euros in railway infrastructure, which is a total of 5.5-6 billion euros in investments in Corridor 8 alone, Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski said Tuesday. 

Addressing the Beyond Borders business forum, Nikoloski mentioned that the country’s two airports, in Skopje and Ohrid, also part of Corridor 8, have been recording progress. The Ohrid airport is being reconstructed until July and the airport in Skopje has recorded a significant rise in the number of passengers in the first quarter of this year in the entire region. 

“At the moment, there are 2.1 billion euros in investments involving highways and expressways, which are being built or are nearing completion. For a country of 1.8 million residents and a GDP of around 21-22 billion dollars is a huge investment. The Ohrid-Kichevo highway costs less than 800 million euros. We’re finally completing it since we have come across multiple challenges. Connection with this highway via Struga to Kjafasan, regardless of the route we will chose, will be in connection with UNESCO as part of UNESCO protection. It’s not a question of whether, it’s a question of how and where. It will cost almost 250 million euros.”

“Also, we are currently in the final procedure for selecting a contractor together with the European Development Bank for a highway design from Kichevo to Bukojcani, which will cost approximately 220 million euros. There is also the Bukojcani - Gostivar section for which there is already a contractor and we are working with the Bechtel and Enka consortium, which will cost almost 590 million euros and on which we are already actively working (there’s already a 50-percent progress). This is followed by the section from Gostivar to Tetovo, then we have 150 million euros for the complete reconstruction of the Skopje bypass, to which we add another 300 million euros for an expressway that we will work on together with the European Union from Kumanovo to Stracin, and we put Stracin - Kriva Palanka into operation last January, a project worth 100 million euros. We also have a complete reconstruction of the Kjafasan border crossing with Albania, as well as the Deve Bair border crossing with Bulgaria and their expansion, and finally - the road from Izvor to Garski Most, a road that will go from the current Ohrid - Kicevo highway, practically to Debar, and from Debar through the Blato border crossing we should connect with Albania, something that we are currently also building,” Minister Nikoloski said. 

In parallel, works are underway to build the railway, he noted recalling that an agreement had been reached with Bulgaria. In this regard, investments are being estimated at over 3 billion euros.

“This past January we launched the first section of the connection with Bulgaria, worth 90 million euros. We are currently working on the second section of the connection with Bulgaria, worth 200 million euros. Together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the European Union we are in the process of tendering to select a contractor for the third phase of the railway connection with Bulgaria, which will cost almost 500 million euros. If we add to that the project that we are currently actively working on with the European Union for the complete reconstruction and upgrade of the railway line from Skopje via Janushevci, Tetovo, Gostivar to Kicevo, which will cost almost 285 million euros, and to that we add Kicevo - Ohrid - Struga, the border with Albania, which will be a completely new line worth two billion euros, I think it is very easy to calculate that somewhere over 3 billion euros will be invested in the railway in the next five to six years on Corridor 8 alone.”

“This whole picture - the roads, the railway and the two airports - shows how much we are investing and how much we want to invest in the infrastructure in the next period,” Minister Nikoloski concluded.

Referring to Corridor 10, he said: “We are in advanced stages to launch the construction of border-to-border high-speed rail, 200 km/h passenger traffic and 120 km/h cargo traffic, which is a huge investment cycle.”

“The president of Albania Bajram Begaj has said: ‘We’re not building highways from Skopje to Ohrid or Struga to go to grab coffee, we are building them to develop businesses and relations with neighbouring countries.’ I think everyone who is attending this forum should make efforts to enable these projects to truly develop businesses instead of only being political or security projects (due to NATO’s demands for example), or only being tourism projects that will be active only two months during the summer season,” Minister Nikoloski told forum’s participants.

Photo/Video: MIA