Also present at today's signing was Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and ministers in his government Branko Grcic and Sinisa Hajdas Doncic.
A total of 85% of the money for the new railway has come from EU funds. The new railway will be the first built in the past 50 years. The last railway was built in 1967 connecting the central Adriatic city of Zadar and the central Croatian city of Knin.b The Gradec- Sveti Ivan Zabno railway will provide better transport connections between Bjelovar-Bilogora County, Korpivnica-Krizevci County, Zagreb County and the city of Zagreb. It will also reduce commuting between Zagreb and Bjelovar by one hour,
The contract on the construction works was signed by representatives of HZ Infrastruktura and a group of contractors that won the public tender, consisting of Comsa S.A.U. from Spain and H. F. Wiebe GmbH&Co from Germany, and the agreement on supervising the construction was signed with SGS Adriatica, Investinzenjering, both from Croatia and SGS SA from Switzerland.