ENKA and joint-venture partner Bechtel have completed the construction of Kosovo Motorway Route 6, a 40-mile (65-kilometers), four-lane motorway that stretches from the country’s capital, Pristina, to North Macedonia. The new route, which is now open to traffic and reduces travel in half to 45 minutes, forms a key part of Kosovo’s national roads network intended to boost trade and connectivity with its neighbors and Western Europe. The ENKA-Bechtel joint venture had completed the Morine-Merdare Motorway, which connects Pristina to the Albanian border, 78 km long before this project.
The end of construction was marked with a ceremony on the new motorway attended by the president, prime minister and infrastructure minister of Kosovo, the prime ministers of Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia, and the U.S. ambassador to Kosovo.
The Route 6 project was the largest employer in Kosovo, and 80% of the 3,350-person workforce were Kosovan. 70% of subcontracted work was awarded to local contractors. Local employees received almost 100,000 hours of training that provided them with new skills to use on future projects.
The Bechtel-ENKA team has successfully delivered a number of major infrastructure projects in the region, including motorways in Albania, Croatia, Türkiye, and Romania. In the last 30 years, the Bechtel-ENKA joint venture, which has 50% partnership with ENKA, completed more than 700 km of highways and roads, a total of 11.5 kilometers of tunnels and 36 km of bridges.
The construction of Arber Caferi Motorway with the contract price of 600 million Euros was started at the end of 2014 and was opened to traffic partially as of October 2015. With the last 18 km section opened on May 29 2019, the whole highway has become open for traffic.