Vucic: Xi Jinping is coming to Serbia next year

Printscreen: Tanjug.rs

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said today that he hopes that Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Serbia next year.

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During a tour of the final works on a viaduct near Vrbas, a part of the third section of the international high-speed railway from Belgrade to Budapest, Vucic said that the new railway will mean a lot to the citizens of that town in northern Serbia.

"They will now be able to get a job in Novi Sad. Now it is 15 minutes away by train, and Belgrade-Novi Sad can now be reached in 33, 34 minutes. It will mean a lot for Vrbas, just as in Belgrade people are moving to suburban belts the more we develop infrastructure and transportation," Vucic said.

He added that people will slowly move from the city to the suburbs, which is a trend around the world, especially among the wealthy and the upper middle class.

"We must hurry because in 2024 we will open the better part of (new) railways and roads. That will be the year of results, it would have been better if we held elections then," said Vucic.

Representatives of a Chinese company showed Vucic two steel bridge structures over a river they have built on that railway, the longest railway bridge in Mali Idjos, a workshop where they weld rails in a safe way, machines that do track laying.

They stressed that, apart from building infrastructure, they pay a lot of attention to be social responsible and that they have signed contracts with 55 Serbian companies and employ more than 200 Serbian workers.

"We directly or indirectly employ over 1,000 Serbian workers," representatives of the Chinese company carrying out the works told Vucic.

The president replied that he can see that tax statements, i.e., how much they invest, and thanked them for that.

"If you win future contracts, give more (jobs) to Serbian companies to learn business from you, we have to build our country," Vucic told them.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)