(ANSA) - SOFIA - Bulgarian Regional Development Minister Nikolai Nankov has told the National Assembly that motorways in Bulgaria are built at a price per kilometre that is the lowest in Europe, but he insisted that this was not at the expense of quality.

Nankov was taking part in a lengthy question and answer session with MPs on infrastructure projects.

In just one year, the government and the Road Infrastructure Agency had launched road projects worth about 1.4 billion leva, and had given contracts for construction and engineering works worth close to 500 million leva, Nankov told Parliament.

Nankov said that when it came to road projects, in Bulgaria the average cost was 3.1 million euro. In Serbia, it was 5.5 million euro, in Romania, 6.3 million euro a km, in Greece 10.28 million euro a km, and in Slovakia 13 million euro a km.

Nankov said that there were large numbers of bidders for contracts.

According to Ibna press agency, following Radev's criticisms a few weeks ago by President Roumen Radev (that Bulgaria looked like a building site and the awarding of government business was being conducted ''in the dark''), Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said that he had told his Cabinet ministers to go to see Radev individually to explain their public procurement procedures to him and allow Radev to check them. Radev responded that this was not the role of the head of state and Borissov should initiate constitutional changes if he wanted it to be. (ANSA).