Europe’s huge £787m Chinese-built highway across tiny country

A European country launched its first-ever and hugely expensive highway in July 2022 with over 60% made up of tunnels and bridges.

The Chinese-funded highway is a lifeline to Montenegro by dramatically cutting down travel times and providing an alternative route to previously treacherous mountain roads in the small Balkan country of 620,000 people.

Valued as one of the world’s most expensive roads, the highway connects Smokovac, near the country’s capital city Podgorica, to the village of Mateševo.

Opening in July 2022, after eight years of construction the A-1 motorway, known locally as the Bar-Boljare highway, cuts through Montenegro’s soaring mountains and over its deep gorges. 

The toll fee of €3.50 is well worth the money as this was previously a perilous journey from the capital to northern Montenegro, with the road now taking around 25 minutes to be crossed in its entirety.

Local resident Maria Kovijanic, who runs a store along the new stretch of highway, told Radio Free Europe: “People here like [the highway] because it’s a shorter way to Podgorica. Before we were going the long way through the canyon of Moraca.

“A lot of people died on that road, so we are very happy with this highway.”

However, the project has been burdened with a huge loan scandal, corruption allegations, construction delays and environmental concerns, earning it the nickname as the “highway to hell”.

The project was funded through a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China taken out by a previous government led by Milo Djukanovic, who at the time was the Prime Minister of Montenegro.

The loan, however, turned into a debt problem for Montenegro and now despite construction having begun in 2015 over 100 miles are still to be built.

An estimate released in 2022 by the Capital Investments Ministry said the second section of the highway, expected to be around 14.5 miles long and to run from Mateševo to Andrijevica in eastern Montenegro, would cost approximately £466m.