Ursula von der Leyen and Alexander Vucic gave a symbolic start to a TRACE project

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the Republic of Serbia Alexander Vucic launched the project "Modernization and rehabilitation of the railway Section Nis-Brestovac" in the Republic of Serbia. The contractor of the project is JV "TRACE BALKANTEL" with a leading partner "Trace Group Hold" Plc.

The official ceremony was attended by the Serbian Ministers of Construction and European Integration Tomislav Momirovic and Jadranka Joksimovic, the Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria in Serbia Petko Doykov, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Trace Prof. Nikolay Mihaylov, PhD (Econ), Dipl. Eng. Nikolay Mihaylov, Dipl. Eng. Boyan Delchev, Executive Director and Trace Serbia managers - Stoyko Meshkov and Predrag Spasov.

In his speech President Vucic commented: "On this section, the trains were moving at 40 km/h, and after train reconstruction they will reach a speed of 120 km/h. He pointed out that this railway line is important for Serbs because it connects Nis with Leskovac, Vranje, Northern Macedonia and Greece. The Serbian President congratulated Trace with the words: “Congratulations to the Bulgarian company that will implement this railway project. I hope that you will work well and meet the deadlines set in the contract.” Prof. Nikolay Mihailov spoke with Nebojsa Shurlan, Director of Railway Infrastructure, Serbia and Zoran Drobnjak - Director of “Serbia Roads”.

The project has got a value of 59 850 000 euro and has European co-financing provided by the pre-accession instruments.

The railway line with a length of 23 km from the exit of the Nis station to the entrance of Brestovac will be rehabilitated. The activities in the project are divided into two sections:

- the first section is a railway line from the exit of Nis station to the exit of Belotince station plus telecommunications and signaling from Nis station;

- the second section is a railway line from the exit of Belotince station to the entrance of Brestovac station, plus telecommunications and signalling to Brestovac station.

Trace's builders began work on the construction site by removing the old rails near the village of Nis - Dolno Medzhurkovo.

In 2019 “Trace Group Hold” Plc successfully completed construction of the most complex highway section Grdelitsa - Caricina Dolina, part of the southern part of the Pan-European Corridor №10 (Highway E 75) in the Republic of Serbia.