Investments in transport infrastructure worth €3.5 billion are currently under way, Minister of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Oleg Butkovic said at the opening of a congress of the "Via Vita" Croatian road and rail association on Monday.

The investment cycle is financed predominantly with EU funds, he said.

“Those major investments are one of the generators of economic activity, primarily in the construction sector, as well as in the auxiliary industries. We can be satisfied because the €3.5 billion refers mostly to the construction of roads and railways, which remain the biggest challenge,” Butkovic said.

That is why the next ten years will be marked by investments in railways, he added.

“We are already investing more than one billion euros to modernise the railway infrastructure, but those investments should amount to up to six billion by 2030,” he said.

Speaking of roads, Butkovic said that after the Peljesac Bridge project and the drilling of the second tube of the Ucka tunnel, the first priority is the completion of the corridor to Hungary, the highway to Sisak and the construction of the Adriatic-Ionian corridor, for which 1.5 billion euros has been secured, as well as the construction of the Krizisce-Zuta Lokva and Metkovic-Dubrovnik highway sections.

There is also a plan for the construction of a number of fast roads in the continental part of Croatia, he said.

“The Istrian Y highway will be completed. We have been discussing the highway changing from its Y form to X and for the part from Kanfanar to Labin to be connected with a highway as well,” the minister said.

Answering a reporter’s question, he said that until now it was not possible to build simultaneously both the highway and railway infrastructure in Istria “because Croatia is not financially and economically strong enough for that.”

In the next four years major strategic projects are to be launched and that could possibly be the biggest cycle of investments so far, Croatian Roads Management Board chair Josip Skoric said.

The “Via Vita” association has regularly organised congresses for several decades, bringing together experts and interested members of the public for debates, round tables and lectures focusing on road connectivity.

This year’s congress brought together around 400 participants, the main theme being “The year of great changes”.