The Serbian government signed a commercial contract worth €250 million on Wednesday with a Turkish company to build the first section of the Belgrade-Sarajevo highway and 376 apartments for security services personnel in southern Serbia.

Construction and Infrastructure Minister Zorana Mihajlovic said after the signing that the construction of the section between Sremska Raca and Kuzmin in Serbia would start in 2020.

“Turkey’s Tasyapi construction company will also reconstruct the Novi Pazar-Tutin road,” she said.  

Mihajlovic said the highway will help create better links between Serbia and Bosnia, and speed up the region’s development. 

Turkey’s Transport and Trade Minister Mehmet Turhan told reporters that the highway is a major infrastructure project which is important to the development of trade and regional links.

“I hope this contract will create a new dimension to our cooperation in the fields of telecommunication and traffic,” he said.

A memorandum of understanding for the construction of the highway connecting the capitals of Serbia and Bosnia was signed earlier by Presidents Aleksandar Vucic and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.