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Avtodor to Speed Up Central Ring Road Project

State-owned road builder Avtodor has developed a project to speed up the construction of Moscow's Central Ring Road (CRR), news reports said Friday.

The main section of the CRR, whose length is projected at 339 kilometers, is scheduled to be finished by 2018. Previously it was slated to be completed in 2020.

Building the highway ahead of schedule will require an additional 68 billion rubles ($2 billion), raising the total cost of the first stretch of the CRR to 300 billion rubles ($9 billion), Kommersant reported.

The project requires an additional 155 billion rubles ($4.6 billion) from the National Welfare Fund and Vneshekonombank.

Avtodor, which develops and manages toll roads in the country, expects that in 29 years it will redeem its debts as a result of charging tolls and receiving subsidies from the federal budget, Lenta.ru reported.

The construction of the final 121.6 kilometer stretch, which will run from the Minskoye Shosse to the Leningradskoye Shosse, will be postponed until after 2020.

The new project will be presented at a meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin in mid-August.

Plans to build the 8-lane 525 kilometer toll road, which is expected to run at a distance of 20 to 86 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road, were first announced in 2003.

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