site.btaAround 40% Progress Made on North Macedonia's Rail Corridor 8 Section from Beljakovce to Kriva Palanka

Around 40% of the work on the Beljakovce-Kriva Palanka section of Railway Corridor 8 in North Macedonia has been completed, Director of Rail Infrastructure Sinisa Ivanovski said on Facebook, posting a video of the construction work.

The section, which is part of the railway connection to Bulgaria, is 34 km long. According to Ivanovski, intensive work is underway on the longest structure, Bridge No. 7, which is 194 metres long and one of 29 bridges along the route.

"At the same time, concrete elements are being produced to restore 26 bridges whose construction was partially completed in the 1990s. A total of 352 concrete elements are needed, of which 71 have been produced so far, at a production rate of 10 per week," Ivanovski wrote. He said the project was around 40% complete, with the aim of reaching 50% by the end of the year.

The East-West transnational transport axis, Railway Corridor 8, stretches from the port of Bari in Italy to the ports of Varna and Burgas in Bulgaria. Its central section runs through North Macedonia via Kichevo, Skopje, Kumanovo, Beljakovce and Kriva Palanka. However, links are still missing at the western end, between Kichevo and the border with Albania, and at the eastern end towards the Bulgarian border. Part of the latter section, between Kumanovo and Beljakovce, was put into operation in January 2025. 

Construction of the railway section of Corridor 8 between Kumanovo, Beljakovce and Kriva Palanka officially began in October 2022 near Kumanovo, with the participation of the then prime ministers of Bulgaria and North Macedonia, Galab Donev and Dimitar Kovachevski.