The winner of the 393 million euro tender for the construction of the new port in Porto Romano will be announced on January 31st of next year. The Minister of Infrastructure, Belinda Balluku, put at the center of a media storm due to news that she has been summoned to SPAK for communication of accusations, announced that immediately after the announcement of the winner, work on the construction of the port will begin.
"We were publicly presenting this project, North Macedonia and Kosovo asked to be part of this project, benefiting not as today, Kosovo and North Macedonia also use the Port of Durres, but by being able to create a connection with two dry ports. Initially, the project from the previous government of North Macedonia was for Struga, but then the Macedonian government itself changed it, requesting it in Skopje, the capital, and another dry port in the Pristina area. Having said that, the entire international procedure has been transparent, there have been several phases for the selection of the consultancy and then for the project, and today we have practically reached the final phase of completing the project for the construction of this port. 5 foreign companies have competed and on January 31 we will have the winner for the construction of the new Port of Durres, which emerged from an international competition, which was led by the company "Royal Haskoning" with the participation of all those departments from the Port Authority of the Port of Durres. "Durres that legally belong to this process."
According to Balluku, the construction works for the port will last three years and in 2029, Albania will have the new port in Porto Romano operational.
"The new port, which will be built, is also expected to be a NATO base, located in the heart of the Mediterranean and undoubtedly in Albania as the most loyal ally of this extraordinary community force. For this reason, the management must always be in good, professional hands and above all in hands that guarantee transparency. For this reason, since Kreshnik Bajraktari will take on a new task, the baton will be passed on to another good colleague that I have known at work and people are known at work, it is said that I knew him years ago when we were colleagues in the two governments. He headed the Ministry of Environment, and this is Liburn Aliu, an architect by profession, but with a long career in politics, with two mandates as a deputy in the Parliament of Kosovo. With a long career in the executive, four years as minister, namely of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure and without a doubt a good colleague, who has always seen Kosovo and Albania as a common market of economic development.”
Ms. Balluku made these statements during the presentation of the new director of the Port Authority, Liburn Aliu, a former minister in the Kosovo government.
"I am very honored to be here today and I am honored by the government of the Republic of Albania, by Deputy Prime Minister Balluku, for a task that has been given to me, that has been entrusted to me and is quite challenging. The Port of Durres is truly the port of the Republic of Albania, it is the port of all Albanians, it is the port of the region, it is the port that Kosovo receives almost the vast majority of its goods through the Port of Durres. Perhaps here, almost half of the goods that go to Kosovo through the National Road, a large part goes to Macedonia and it is necessary for this port to be modernized to the extent that it is challenging, to be competitive in the entire region," said Aliu.
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