Transport Minister: Development expenditure at €444 million in the next three years

The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works development expenditure will reach €443.7 million in the next three years, excluding projects that would be financed by the EU Resilience and Recovery Fund, Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos has said.

Karousos warned that no project can be launched if the 2021 state budget is not approved.

Presenting the Ministry’s budget for 2021, which amounts to €367.5 million, to the parliamentary committee of Finance and Budgetary Affairs, Karousos said that the estimated revenue for 2021 is reduced to €268.5 million due to the coronavirus pandemic, adding that the development projects' implementation rate for 2020 is expected to rise to 73% compared with 66% in 2019.

“The development part of the budget is increasing every year,” Karousos said, adding that development funds as a percentage to the Ministry’s total expenditure rose by 27%.

“And the rate will reach to 39% (of total expenditure) by 2023,” he said, adding that the increase in development expenditure for the period of 2020-2023 will reach 81.5% and €164 million in 2023 from €90.4 in 2020.

Furthermore, Karousos said the Ministry made sure that all development projects have begun or are mature enough so that construction works would begin.

Karousos also said that the Ministry’s 2021 budget includes provisions for the preparation of the 5-year Incentives Scheme for electric vehicles, a Scheme for the withdrawal of polluting vehicles, the purchase of electric motorcycles for postmen and the replacement of the government fleet with electric vehicles.

The budget, he said, also includes funds for the creation of electric vehicles charging points at the highways and public parking places, for encouragement of bicycle use and sustainable mobility, the urban mobility management and control system (smart traffic lights) as well as an upgrade of buildings' energy.