EIB, EBRD fund new terminal at Albanian port
TIRANA (SeeNews) – Albania will start building a 22-million-euro terminal at its biggest Adriatic port of Durres with help from international lenders by next June, the country’s Transport Ministry said yesterday. The project will be financed by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the ministry’s spokesman Gerti Bogdani told SeeNews. «The disbursement of the loans will start in June 2006,» Bogdani added. The construction of the terminal is part of the master plan for the port’s development, aimed at raising the passenger-handling capacity of the facility and the security and quality of services. A separate EIB-funded 17-million-euro project to rebuild and enlarge the port is also under way in Durres. A $13 million (11-million-euro) fishing port, funded by the Islamic Development Bank and the Albanian government, is also expected to be built there. Durres lies at the western end of the Pan-European Transport Corridor VIII, linking the Adriatic and Ionian seas and the Black Sea. The port served 610,346 passengers through October this year. Last year, it handled 723,163 passengers.
