The building of a motorway in the Rhodope Mountains will begin in the following few months. It will go from Gotse Delchev via Dospat, Borino, Devin, Smolyan and Madan to Kurdjali and will be hundreds of kilometers shorter than the current detouring road via Borovets, Deputy Regional Development and Public Works Minister Dimcho Mihalevski said on Monday.

The designs are ready, and ground is likely to be broken at the beginning of 2009, Mihalevski said. Negotiations are currently under way with Greek partners who are expected to provide 30 million euro. The Bulgarian Government will contribute 50 million leva under the Operational Program for Regional Development, BTA added.

Before the ground-breaking, a second procedure is expected to start for the second stage of the road Kurdjali-Makaza-Komotini. The bidding won by the Thrace company was challenged at the Commission for the Protection of Competition.