Orbán cabinet announced grandiose road building program connecting E Hungary with Romania

The government is working to establish transport hubs on the Hungarian Plain, and Békéscsaba, in the southeast of the country, will become one of them, Construction and Transportation Minister Janos Lázár said in the county seat on Friday.

After talks with city leaders, Lázár said the sides had agreed that the government should include Bekescsaba and Szolnok in the government’s development plans for the cities of Szeged, Kecskemét and Debrecen. They also discussed extending the M44 expressway to the border with Romania and expanding road no. 47 into a dual carriageway, he added.

In addition to cross-border connections between the Hungarian cities of Nyiregyhaza, Debrecen and Szeged, and their Romanian neighbours of Satu Mare, Oradea and Timisoara, now Békéscsaba and Arad, across the border, would become a transport hub, supporting Bekescsaba’s role as a logistics and distribution centre, he said.

Békéscsaba Mayor Péter Szarvas said he was “optimistic” that the city’s development, both in terms of economy and quality of local services, would continue to accelerate in the coming five years.

Lázár said adding another 43km to the M44, bringing it to the border with Romania, would cost around HUF 300bn. He added that the HUF 6.5bn contract on planning the extension had been signed.

He said the expansion of road no. 47 would start north of Bekescsaba, first on the stretch to Szeghalom, and later to Berettyóújfalu.

He said funding had already been earmarked to plan a bypass on the southern fringe of the city.

He said that efforts would be made to accelerate the development of the city’s airport and put the cost of reconstruction, implemented in part as a military project, at HUF 20bn.

Other possible investments discussed included a railway container terminal, a new stadium and swimming pool, and the paving of dirt roads, he said. Rolling stock that serves the region will be upgraded starting in 2025, he added.

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