Romania has opened the first 42km stretch of its Transylvania Motorway, which will link the country’s central area with the Hungarian border.

The first part of the highway links the city of Turda to Gilau in central-western Romania and has been designed to serve as a ring road for trucks to bypass Cluj city until the entire 415km motorway is built.

Work has been carried out by US-based firm Bechtel at a cost of $16.61m/km on the highway.

The Transylvania Motorway, which in total will cost almost $2.2bn, will stretch from the central Romanian city of Brasov to the country’s western border with Hungary in Bors.

The entire road will include 55km of bridges and viaducts, 58 flyovers and 16 junctions and is expected to finish in 2013.