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MATESEVO, Montenegro.- The highway runs through mountains and through ravines and canyons, but at the moment it does not lead anywhere. Is in Montenegro, cost $ 1 billion And, to top it off, it threatens to bankrupt the economy of this tiny Balkan country.
After six years of construction, the peaceful village of Matesevo is the unlikely end of one of the most expensive highways in the world.
In 2014, the country, candidate for the European Union (EU), contracted a A loan of 944 million dollars to a Chinese bank for the Chinese company CRBC to carry out the first section of the highway, of about forty kilometers.
The section of the motorway that connects Matesevo with the capital’s suburbs, Podgorica, will be inaugurated in November. But the country of 600,000 inhabitants will have to find more than one billion euros additional (1.2 billion dollars) for the construction of the 130 kilometers necessary for the realization of the works.
Critics denounce the environmental impact and possible corruption that have arisen around a project to link the city of Bar, to the south, to the border with Serbia, to the north and, ultimately, to Belgrade.
The inhabitants of the town, located on the banks of the Tara River, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, in one of the deepest gorges in Europe, are trying to see the bright side. “For us, there are positive aspects. Some have managed to sell their land and leave, which was previously impossible ”in an impoverished region from which many of its inhabitants decided to emigrate, a phenomenon similar to other regions of the Balkans, underlines a neighbor.
Now the gigantic pillars of the highway make her house, located next door, look like a doll’s house.
No one knows how the Chinese loan, which represents one-fifth of Montenegro’s external debt, will be repaid. The first installment will fall in July.
In recent years, Beijing has been accused of having set a “trap” for many countries, which have taken on debt to build titanic infrastructure built by the Asian giant as part of its New Silk Roads project. China denies that it wants to increase its influence in the Balkans through investments.
Photos: Savo Prelevic / AFP
Photo edition: Fernanda Corbani
THE NATION
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