American-Turkish consortium Bechtel-Enka signs Kosovo highway deal worth $820 million

Kosovo's Infrastructure Ministry says a $820 million deal has been signed with American-Turkish consortium Bechtel-Enka to build a 60 kilometer (37 miles) highway that will link Kosovo with Macedonia.

The ministry said Tuesday work on the new highway will start on July 2.

This is the second major contract awarded to the consortium in Kosovo after it won a $1 billion agreement in 2010 to build a highway linking Kosovo to Albania. That highway was finished in 2013.

The Bechtel-Enka consortium is made up of San Francisco, California-based Bechtel International Inc. and Istanbul-based Enka.

Kosovo is one of the poorest regions in Europe. Its 2008 secession from Serbia is fiercely rejected by Belgrade.