Vesic: Serbia, China have built steely friendship thanks to Vucic, Xi

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Goran Vesic said on Tuesday that, thanks to Presidents Aleksandar Vucic and Xi Jinping, Serbia and China had built a steely friendship based on which they were developing new prospects for the relations between the two countries and the two peoples.

Speaking at a Serbia-China media and research seminar hosted by the Tanjug and Xinhua news agencies, Vesic said China had played a special role on the path of Serbia's development.

"Serbia is developing and modernising itself at an accelerated pace. Political and economic stability have been achieved, resulting in high public investment - chiefly in infrastructure development - and predictable business conditions have been established and improved, leading to us having a record-high FDI inflow. Serbia has a higher FDI inflow and a higher GDP than all other Western Balkan countries combined," Vesic noted.

The cooperation with China occupies a central place in Serbia's rise in the past decade, Vesic said, adding that the cooperation was not only economic but multidimensional and that it was growing stronger.

Vesic said Serbia was especially grateful to China for its contribution to development of the Serbian transport infrastructure.

"We have completed a 76 km high-speed rail line section between Belgrade and Novi Sad. This year, we will complete a new 108 km high-speed rail route, and we will connect Belgrade and Budapest with a high-speed rail line in 2026, enabling our two countries to cooperate much better and develop together," Vesic said.

He said the inclusion of Greece and North Macedonia in the project would result in the construction of a high-speed rail line between Budapest and Athens that would span over 1,500 km.

Serbian Minister of Internal and External Trade Tomislav Momirovic said political, economic and trade ties between Serbia and China had reached, and then also exceeded, the level of strategic partnership.

"I would like to point out that China is one of Serbia's most important economic partners and one of the largest investors in the Serbian economy," he said.

He said China had been Serbia's second-largest external trade partner in 2023, with bilateral trade totalling 6.1 bln euros, as well as its seventh-largest export market, accounting for 4 pct of Serbian exports.

He said bilateral trade was on a constant upward trajectory, having quadrupled in the past decade.

"Our exports to China rose by slightly more than 87 times in the past decade," Momirovic said, noting that a recently signed Serbia-China FTA would lend an additional impetus to progress of bilateral trade cooperation.

Chinese Ambassador to Belgrade Li Ming said Chinese President Xi Jinping's upcoming official visit to Belgrade - his second in eight years - represented a major milestone in the progress and raising of bilateral ties to higher levels.

He said Xi would provide strong intellectual support to development of Sino-Serbian relations and make a positive contribution to expanding and implementing the concept of "a community with a shared future for humanity."