Soon we will travel at 200 km/h from Belgrade to Budapest and Athens by train!

Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlovic said yesterday, after the trilateral meeting of China - Hungary - Serbia, dedicated to the reconstruction and modernization of the Belgrade-Budapest railway, that all three parties jointly agreed to immediately begin discussions with other countries, primarily Macedonia and Greece, to modernize the entire railway line to the port of Piraeus in similar way.

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- We will begin negotiations on how to effectively merge the project Belgrade - Budapest with the port of Piraeus in Greece, because the essence of the entire corridor project which should connect us, and that Serbia primarily provides a better transit from Greece to Europe itself. Therefore, it is not enough just to have a modernized railway Belgrade - Budapest, we have to have a section to the south - Mihajlovic said after the meeting in Budapest.

The next trilateral meeting, as she said, is in January in Beijing, and until then it will be worked, not only at the beginning of the reconstruction of the Belgrade-Budapest, but also in preparation for the connection between Belgrade and Budapest to Greece.

Mihajlovic said that the Serbian side is ready to start with the modernization of the railway practically this summer, between June and then November, on which trains will be able to move at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour.

- Everything we had to do as a precondition, and there was a lot of it, we did it in the previous period. We had slightly slower progress at the Hungarian side, Serbian side is going few steps ahead, but we talked to speed it up, to have modernized railway Belgrade - Budapest together - she said.

She said that the Hungarian side have assurance they will speed up project on their territory.

Foto: Tanjug/Ministarstvo gradjevinarstva, saobracja i infrastrukture

Mihajlovic said that the works on the section Stara Pazova - Novi Sad, which are financed from Russian loan, will start in June, while the works on section Belgrade - Stara Pazova, for which the financing agreement was signed during the recent visit of the delegation of Serbia to Beijing, will begin in November.

- We are currently working on it and we expect to sign it in November, commercial contract for the third railway, to the Hungarian border, and then we can say that Serbia with its project documentation is fully prepared - said Mihajlovic.

President of the National Commission for Development and Reform Siaotao Wang said at the trilateral meeting that the project of reconstruction of the Belgrade - Budapest will require efforts from all sides for the dynamics to go as planned.

Foto: Tanjug/Ministarstvo gradjevinarstva, saobracja i infrastrukture

- It is necessary to increase cooperation and efficiency, to accomplish everything we agreed on. Currently there are faster works on Serbian side then on Hungarian - he noticed.

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Commissioner of the Hungarian Government for bilateral relations with China, Peter Sijarto said that Serbia is ahead of Hungary when it comes to the dynamics of work and the Hungarian side had to speed up work on this project.

Foto: Tanjug/Ministarstvo gradjevinarstva, saobracja i infrastrukture

- By November, when we will have the honor to host the Summit of 16 countries plus China in Budapest, our goal is to speed up work on the project and we have tangible results - he added.

He stressed that the railway Belgrade - Budapest is very important because it's part of the transport corridor that will go to the Greek port of Piraeus.

High speed rail from Belgrade to Budapest for Serbia is one of the most important projects in the Chinese project "One belt - one road" because it is located on the main route from the Greek port of Piraeus to central Europe.

Foto: Tanjug/Ministarstvo gradjevinarstva, saobracja i infrastrukture

Modernization, reconstruction and construction of the Belgrade - Budapest railway will have great importance to the participation of railway transport in trade flows in Serbia, because better rail infrastructure contributes to increased demand for freight transport, given the announcement that we can expect an increase in the transport of goods from the port Piraeus to northern Europe.

It is expected that the train will go up to 200 km/h with modernization of railway, and the modernization through Serbia will be carried out in three phases.

(Telegraf.co.uk / Tanjug)