The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a €340 million loan to Bosnia and Herzegovina for the construction of a part of the motorway on the Budapest-Ploce corridor, officials in the country's Autocesta Federacija BiH road operator confirmed on Thursday.

The loan approved will be used to construct 36 kilometres of the motorway from Zenica to Doboj with road authority officials saying that this loan closes the entire financial structure for the motorway in that entity.

Bosnia's Vc motorway route includes sections through the Federation entity and about thirty kilometres passes through the Serb entity and construction works have already begun on the leg from Doboj to the Sava River for which finances have already been secured.

The Vc corridor through Bosnia and Herzegovina stretches for 330 kilometres and so far about 130 kilometres have been completed and works are underway on several sections in the centre and south of the country.

Some ten kilometres of a ring-road bypassing Zenica should be open to traffic in November and the federation's transport minister Denis Lasic has said that by the summer of 2022 Mostar should be connected to the motorway which leads towards the Bijaca-Nova Sela border crossing with Croatia.

The road authority's officials have estimated that if work continues at the current pace the entire motorway in all of Bosnia and Herzegovina could be completed within the next seven years.