Photo taken on May 30, 2020 showing the construction site of the Belgrade-Budapest Railway in Stara Pazova, Serbia.Photo:Xinhua
Officials from Serbia and Hungary held an inauguration ceremony to celebrate the start of the operation of a section of the Belgrade-Budapest railway, a flagship project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), according to a press release on the website of the China Embassy in Serbia.
The 80-kilometer section, which connects Belgrade and Novi Sad, the capital and second-largest city of Serbia, is part of the 341-kilometer Belgrade-Budapest railway, which has a developed speed of 200 kilometers per hour, the statement said.
On Saturday, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other government officials took the train to Belgrade railway station. Just 33 minutes later, the train arrived at the station in Novi Sad, and was warmly welcomed by the residents.
According to the statement, the Belgrade-Novi Sad section is composed of two parts, one of which was built by China Communications Construction as well as China Railway International in the form of engineering, procurement and construction contracts.
Chinese companies were also responsible for building communication and signaling technology in this section.
The railway, which is an important project under the BRI, shows the uninterrupted progress of the initiative despite difficulties such as the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions.
Data from the Ministry of Commerce show that China’s trade with countries along the BRI line rose to an eight-year high of 11.6 trillion yuan ($ 1.82 trillion) in 2021, accounting for almost a third of China’s total trade.
The Belgrade-Budapest railway project is also a successful model of transnational cooperation, as companies from different countries participated in the project.
In addition to China, Russian companies participated in the construction of the railway. German companies have installed surveillance equipment while trains were being manufactured in Switzerland, the Xinhua News Agency has revealed.
Global Times
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