July the 15th, 2020 – Peljesac bridge, a huge project of strategic importance to both Croatia and the European Union, hasn’t remained immune to the troubles caused by the ongoing pandemic…
Coronavirus has done more damage to the global economy than anyone could have ever expected back at the very beginning of this year when pieces of information about a strange new virus began trickling out of the notoriously secretive China. Since then, the virus has taken the world and its economy by storm, seeing tourism grind to a halt and wreaking havoc with health systems across the globe.
Peljesac bridge, being constructed by a Chinese company, much to the dismay of the European Commission, has been experiencing numerous issues as a result of the difficulties caused by the spread of the new coronavirus.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, if welders from China don’t manage to arrive at the construction site of the long-awaited Peljesac bridge soon, together with a new contingent of 47 steel blocks, the bridge will not be completed in about a year, when it should have been, Slobodna Dalmacija reports.
Due to the coronavirus crisis, the investor, Croatian roads (Hrvatske ceste) and the contractor, the Chinese state company China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), left the possibility of extending the set deadline for completion (July the 31st, 2021) open for a few more months, but if the arrival of the steel blocks from Chinese steel ends up being prolonged, the opening of the bridge itself might only be able to occur at the beginning of 2022.
The Chinese have negotiated with the Croatian company “Brodosplit” to give them their welders, but so far, nothing has come of it.
Those more familiar with this issue claim that the Chinese eventually want to bring their welders over from China because they believe that their business reputation would be damaged if they introduced a company from Croatia to such an important business. This would of course mean that they’d be unable to build Peljesac bridge on their own, which, according to CRBC, would damage their business reputation.
The issue regards about five hundred Chinese welders. So far, seven of the twelve pillars and two abutments on the Neretva and Peljesac sides have been built.
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