Bulgaria and a Greek contractor signed Wednesday an agreement on the construction of a road that is part of a future cross-border connection through Roudozem-Xanthe, BTA reports.

The road to be built under this agreement is 31 km long and links Sokolovtsi and Srednogortsi through Smolyan. It is a link in the international route from Plovdiv to Smolyan to Roudozem, and Xanthe in Greece.

The project is worth 10.6 million euro and will be funded by the Phare programme for cross-border cooperation.

The construction work will be done by Entechnos and will be supervised by a Bulgarian-French consortium.

Regional Development Minister Assen Gagaouzov and Entechnos CEO Christozoulos Stilianiadis broke ground for the future road.

Gagaouzov said that over 70 million euro has been slated for roads between Bulgaria and Greece. In Smolyan Region alone - the border region with Greece - 30 million leva were invested in the past three years.