North Macedonia breaks ground on the Kičevo–Bukojčani motorway link
Construction has begun on North Macedonia's Kičevo–Bukojčani motorway section, an 11.5 km STRABAG-led Corridor VIII project backed by EBRD and EU funding.
On 12 October 2026, construction officially began on the 11.5 km Kičevo–Bukojčani motorway section, closing the gap between the Kičevo–Ohrid and Tetovo–Gostivar–Bukojčani routes, with Prime Minister Mickoski and Transport Minister Nikoloski at the ceremony. The start marks the first physical work on a segment that has been a planning priority for North Macedonia’s corner of the E65.
The contract behind that groundbreaking is substantial: a STRABAG-led consortium with a 50% stake won a €219 million contract to build the 11.5 km Bukojčani–Kičevo section of the E65 motorway, including a ~370 m twin-tube tunnel, two viaducts, five bridges, a four-year construction phase and five years of operation and maintenance financed by a €110m EBRD loan and a ~€20m EU grant. STRABAG’s own press release, dated 13 October 2026, frames the award as a Corridor VIII project and confirms the ceremony had already taken place.
A separate Macedonian account of the same event records that construction started on 12 October 2026 on the 12 km Kičevo–Bukojčani section linking the Ohrid–Kičevo and Bukojčani–Gostivar motorways, with five bridges or viaducts, a 370 m tunnel and two interchanges to be built by the Strabag–Duna consortium over four years. The slight variation in stated length — 11.5 km versus 12 km — and in consortium naming does not change the picture of a single cross-valley motorway link moving into execution.
The two local outlets put the EBRD financing at €119m alongside the €20m EU grant, a slightly higher loan figure than the €110m cited in STRABAG’s release, but all three sources align on the four-year build deadline and the strategic shape of the route. The €20m EU grant appears consistently across every account, as does the presence of a tunnel and multiple major structures.
The section forms part of Corridor VIII and the E65 motorway, and its completion joins the Ohrid–Kičevo and Bukojčani–Gostivar alignments into a single continuous stretch — the missing piece that turns two half-built corridors into one through-route across the country’s west. For a network that has grown in fragments, a single 11.5 km segment is what makes the longer chains function as one.
What is now underway is the physical phase: a twin-tube tunnel, multiple viaducts and bridges, and two interchanges, with the consortium’s five-year maintenance obligation set to follow the construction deadline. For a €219m cross-border link, the groundbreaking is the moment where the financing and contractual structure stop being the story and the excavation begins.
Sources
- STRABAG consortium awarded a 219-million-euro infrastructure project in North Macedonia — STRABAG Newsroom (official company press release)
- Construction Begins on the Kichevo - Bukojchani Motorway: 11.5 Kilometres in Four Years — METLA.MK (North Macedonian news outlet)
- Kičevo–Bukojčani motorway: construction begins — ВЕСНИК (Vesnik, North Macedonian news outlet)