The government is accelerating investments in the infrastructure of Northern Bulgaria.

The Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, Ivan Ivanov, announced that within this and the next week, the municipalities will receive 200 million levs from the state budget for the implementation of projects under the Investment Program. He assured that a large part of the accumulated delay and deficit in recent years will be overcome in 2023.

Ivanov called on the local authorities to focus their efforts on priority water supply and sewerage projects and those for the rehabilitation of the water supply network when applying for budget financing. The Minister also announced that the government has managed to preserve the funds under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan for the approved projects for energy renovation of multi-family residential buildings, which will be completed by the end of March 2026.

Ivanov assured that 2.5 billion levs from the state budget are planned for a new National Program for Energy Renovation of Multi-Family Residential Buildings. He emphasized that work is currently underway on the preparation of the documentation, and by the end of the year, the application criteria will be developed.

The Minister was open that Northern Bulgaria has fallen behind in time due to a lack of infrastructure connectivity, but the government is currently focused on this area. Ivanov reported that the construction of the Hemus Motorway has been unblocked and the deadline for completing the first section by the end of June or the beginning of July this year will be met. At the same time, major repairs are being carried out on road III-305 Dermanitsi - Pleven, which will be completed around the end of August.

Next week, traffic will also be unblocked on the high-speed road Botevgrad - Mezdra. Work continues on securing critical road sections on the republican road network, with activities to increase safety already completed in 14 of the 36 sections included in the Safety Plan. Within 1-2 months, the measurement of average speed on republican roads will begin, and control over overloaded trucks will be tightened.