Transport and Infrastructure Oleg Butkovic on Monday said that investments in Croatia's transport infrastructure were valued at more than HRK 20 billion and that most of these investments went to the road sector.

Butkovic was attending a conference on the future of Croatia’s transport system, organised by the Via Vita roads’ association, about current road, railway, sea and air transport and of the strategy, financing, public procurement, and construction of infrastructure.

Commenting on the ongoing projects, he cited the future Peljesac Bridge, a bypass road around Omis, an access road to the Rijeka ringroad and so on.

Speaking of procurement procedures, Butkovic made reference to long appeals procedures which often make it difficult to close financial constructions for various projects.

He added that the law that regulates this has been aligned with EU directives and that a balance needs to be found so that appeals processes are resolved more quickly and that possible abuse is diminished.

As for road transport investments, he also mentioned projects referring to the infrastructure within the pan-European 5C corridor, the motorway to Sisak, the Istria Y-motorway and the future, second tunnel through Ucka as well as completing the Zagreb-Macelj motorway and fast roads in Zagorje, Bjelovar.

“We need to be grateful for EU funds, which help us to resolve large investment,” he underscored and added that along with economic growth, Croatia’s budget is all the more stable and is opening opportunities for the country to slowly resolve the question of investments from the state budget in collaboration with international institutions.