Romania’s National Company for Road Infrastructure Management - CNAIR signed on Monday the contract for building a new bridge over the Danube near Braila, which will connect the Dobrogea region to the rest of the country.

Italian group Astaldi and Japanese company IHI Infrastructure Systems will build the bridge, which is considered the most complex road infrastructure project in Romania in the last 27 years. The contract’s value is RON 1.99 billion (EUR 429 million) without VAT.

The work on the bridge should take 4 years, including one year for the design and three years for the execution, and the warranty period is 10 years.

The suspended bridge at Braila will be one of the top 5 in Europe by central opening, with 1.12 kilometers. Besides the suspended bridge, the project includes two viaducts of 110 meters each, a main road of some 19 kilometers, and a secondary road of 4.3 kilometers.

The bridge is an element of national security and normality that will prevent some parts of Romania from being isolated, prime minister Mihai Tudose said on Monday. The project has been on the agenda since the 1980s.

Romania currently has two other bridges over the Danube connecting the Dobrogea region to the rest of the country, namely the Cernavoda bridge and the one at Giurgeni-Vadu Oii.

editor@romania-insider.com