A segment of Arber Road under construction at Tujani Gorge, east of Tirana is seen along the old narrow ancient road on 14 March 2015. Photo: Gjergj Erebara, BIRN

The Albanian government is proposing to pass a special law to allow it to award a concessionary contract to the “China State Construction Company” to help build a highway to Macedonia.

In its explanatory note to parliament, it said the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, along with other ministries, “considering the importance of this project, have decided to forward an exceptional procedure for the negotiation of the agreement for the construction… of the Arber Road between the Government of Albania and the China State Construction Company”.

The new two-lane highway is designed to link the capital, Tirana, with the isolated Dibra region on the Macedonian border through an expensive shortcut into the mountainous area in central Albania.

The segment of the concession is expected to be just 26.8 km long and the speed of the road will be 50-60 km per hour. The projected road aims to shorten the current route by more than 74 km and cut the traveling time from 4 to just 1.5 hours.

It will require two tunnels, 2,600 and 560 meters long, as well as 15 medium-sized and long bridges with a total estimated length of 1,500 meters.

The road is expected to cost up to 200 million euros. Parts of it have been built or are already under construction.

The details of the concessionary agreement, including the question of how it will be financed, are not being made public.

The Arber Road was first conceived by a group of Albanian engineers who wanted to link up the poor northeastern Dibra region to the rest of the country.

It will also link Albania to the town of Dibra, Debar in Macedonian, which lies just over the border in Macedonia but is mainly Albanian in ethnicity.

The existing road is a cobbled route built in ancient times as a shorter alternative to the Via Egnatia, the main road in the Balkans for the Roman Empire.

It takes the name of Arber, which is the medieval name for the regions inhabited by Albanians in the Balkans.