Vucic: Important day for Serbia, Bulgaria and entire region

SOFIA - Today is an important day for Serbia, Bulgaria and the entire region, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday, noting that Serbia and Bulgaria, the two peoples and the two economies continued to connect with each other.

Vucic is in Kostinbrod, near Sofia, for a ceremony marking the start of works to build the Bulgarian stretch of a gas interconnector between the two countries.

In a post on his buducnostsrbijeav Instagram profile, Vucic thanked Bulgarian counterpart Rumen Radev, who greeted him at the construction site, for efforts aimed at building a better future and the best possible relations together.

"An important day for Serbia, Bulgaria and the entire region. We continue to connect the two countries, the two peoples and our economies. The new gas interconnector will bring greater energy security to citizens and an opportunity for new investments, and we also discussed other planned projects," Vucic wrote in the post, which also included a photo of his meeting with Radev.

The two-way gas pipeline will span 170 km and its Serbian stretch will be 109 km long.

It will have an annual capacity of 1.8 bln cubic metres.

The construction of the 85.5 mln euro Nis-Dimitrovgrad-Bulgaria interconnector is financed by a 25 mln euro European Investment Bank loan and a 49.6 mln euro grant from IPA funds, with the rest of the costs to be covered by the Serbian budget and Srbijagas.

As announced earlier, the interconnector will be ready for operation in mid-2023.

Through a gas interconnector with Greece, Bulgaria will be getting natural gas from Azerbaijan and LNG via a port in northern Greece.