The North Coast Highway will be officially commissioned at the end of March.

Dr Omar Davies, the transport, works and housing minister, in a statement to the House of Representatives today, said the highway is now 90 per cent complete.

The Treadways to Moneague link which was opened in August 2014 already attracts a toll charge.

Meanwhile, Davies said the Caymanas to Angels section will be opened by end of February — about the same time the Ocho Rios to Moneague leg will be opened.

The Angels to Linstead link will be opened by the end of this month, the minister said.

However, Davies said there has not yet been any request for toll rates for the new legs.

In the meantime, Davies said the Southern Coastal Highway, which is to stretch from Harbour View to Port Antonio is budgeted to cost some US$1 billion.

Davies said too that US$350 million will be spent on the highway from Harbour View to Morant Bay.

Construction of the highway is expected to start in the last quarter of the 2016/2017 fiscal year.

He said that a toll road will not be feasible going east, and told fellow parliamentarians that St Thomas and Portland has been "neglected in terms of infrastructure" and that the road construction is an investment to drive development in those eastern parishes.