Novo Mesto, Karlovac, Bihac for better road connections to pan-European corridors

The Novo Mesto-Karlovac-Bihac transport route is important for the development of industry and tourism, it was said earlier this week at a conference on connecting the three towns and their regions that was held in Karlovac. The president of Croatia's Karlovac County Chamber of Commerce, Zlatko Kuzman, said the chambers of the three towns initiated the development of the transport infrastructure when the Slovenian and Croatian sides were not connected by motorway, which is now being built in Bosnia and Herzegovina too.

The CEO of Croatia's Rijeka-Zagreb Motorway company, Miro Skrgatic, presented the continuation of construction works on the Novigrad hub, in which HRK 110 million has been invested and which is essential because of the traffic increase in the summer.

The director of Slovenia's Dolenjska and Bela Krajina Chamber of Commerce, Tomas Kordis, said the road from Novo Mesto to Karlovac was extremely important, which is why they call it "the third development axis".

The prime minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Una-Sana Canton, Mustafa Ruznic, said the three regions in question had been connected for a long time and that the strategic goal of his government was to connect also with Sarajevo as well as Western Europe via the "friendly regions".

Dedo Pjanic, an executive of Bosnia's Federation Roads company, underlined the importance of building the 180-kilometre-long Izacic-Bihac road, which is worth EUR 30 million.

It will be the first stage in building two-lane expressways on Una-Sana Canton sections which gravitate towards Croatia and which record an average daily traffic of over 12,000 vehicles, he said. (Hina)

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