Both Chinese Premier and Serbia's Prime Minister Pay Attention to the Launching Ceremony of Hungary-Serbia Railway Serbia Section

The launching ceremony of Modernization and Upgrading of Hungarian-Serbian Railway Line in the Territory of Serbia was held in Novi Sad, the second largest city of Serbia. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang wrote a letter congratulating its launching, and Serbia's Prime Minister Vucic attended the ceremony and gave a speech.

Zorana Mihajlovi? - Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure Construction of Serbia, Wang Xiaotao - Deputy Director of National Development and Reform Commission of China, his Excellency Li Manchang - the Chinese Ambassador to Serbia, CCCC Vice President Sun Ziyu, CRBC Chairman Wen Gang, CRBC Vice President Ren Hongpeng and representatives of relevant units such as China Railways Corporation and Export-Import Bank of China, and government officials of Serbia attended the launching ceremony. Serbia's Prime Minister Vucic, together with the government and enterprise representatives, specially took a train to the site of the ceremony from Belgrade, expressing his expectation and wish for this railway.

In the letter, Premier Li Keqiang stated that China was willing cooperate with Serbia and Hungary to effectively promote the construction of Hungary-Serbia Railway according to the consensus and agreement, guarantee the high-quality completion of the project on schedule and try to make the railway open to traffic early. He believed that this would not only greatly promote the regional infrastructure construction and infrastructure development, strengthen the well-being of local people and promote the European integration process, but also will be beneficial to better connect the Chinese and European development strategies, deepen the cooperation of China and Europe in the key fields such as international production capacity and investment and realize mutual benefit and win-win.

Serbia's Prime Minister Vucic gives a speech at the launching ceremony

In his speech, Prime Minister Vucic expressed his thanks for both Chinese and Serbian working teams for their efforts to promote the project. The launching of Modernization and Upgrading of Hungarian-Serbian Railway project was another significant breakthrough in the practical cooperation between China and Serbia, and also fully reflected the further improvement in the strategic partnership level between two countries, and it was of great significance to the deep development of "16+1 cooperation". Hungary-Serbia Railway greatly narrowed the distance between Serbia and the heart of Europe and it was helpful to build Serbia to be a regional transportation and logistics hub. Serbia was willing to continuously work hard together with China and ensure the goal of Hungary-Serbia Railway opening to traffic in 2018 was realized.

As an important component of South-North Channel in the European Railway Network, building Hungary-Serbia Railway is a long-cherished wish of several European countries. Since 1992, the European Commission has designated the railway project from the capital of Serbia to the capital of Hungary as a key development project. On May 10th, 2013, both the railway companies of Serbia and Hungary agreed to build Hungary-Serbia Railway project with Chinese funds. In December, 2014, this project was launched as one of the first group of projects during the "16+1 Summit" of Central and Eastern Europe. Hungary-Serbia Railway is a flagship project under the cooperation among China, Serbia and Hungary, so its launching marked a new and important step of the cooperation among China, Serbia and Hungary and also marked that China's infrastructure construction enterprises stood at a new historical starting point.

Hungary-Serbia Railway is about 350km long, with one end in Budapest, the capital of Hungary which is known as "Heart of Europe", and the other end in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The Serbia Section is 184km long, which is jointly undertaken by CCCC and China Railway International Co., Ltd, and its launching marks the comprehensive implementation of cooperation among China, Serbia and Hungary in the railway construction and also an important achievement in Chinese railway "Go Globle".