A technical study worth US$5.9 million (€4 million) is starting for Tunisia's Kairouan-Enfidha highway. The study is being financed by the 1054 European Investment Bank (EIB) through a subsidiary and is being carried out for the Tunisian Ministry for Transport and Equipment. The first section of the highway is expected to be open to traffic in the third quarter of 2012. Meanwhile the Tunisian Ministry for Transport and Equipment has increased the scale of its rural road upgrade programme. In all some 1750km of rural roads will now be upgraded and repaired in Tunisia, up from the 750km originally planned. A further $184.5 million (€125 million) has been allotted to improving and developing the country's highway network. Of this sum, 20% will be used to improve coastal highways and 80% for inland road links. Given the unrest in North Africa at present, the development of the North African highway running 5,600km from Morocco through to Egypt is being delayed. Morocco and Algeria are close to completing their sections of the highway while work is at an advanced stage in Tunisia and Egypt. Libya however has been sluggish to commence its share of the project and with civil war raging in the country at present, it is not clear when the highway construction work will be able to start.
