“After so many years the Chinese president is visiting Serbia”.
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Xi arrived in Poland yesterday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, second from right, and his Serbian counterpart, Tomislav Nikolic, right, stand to attention as the two nations’ anthems are performed by a Serbian army brass band in Belgrade, Serbia, Saturday, June 18, 2016.
Serbian President Tomsilav Nikolic gave a more optimistic assessment of the visit.
Chinese President Xi Jinping says Beijing wants to deepen its relations with Serbia and supports Belgrade’s bid to join the European Union.
Xi signed a declaration on strategic partnership with Serbia’s President Tomislav Nikolic.
The visit will “open a new page” in relations between the two countries, Xi said in a speech translated into Serbian and distributed by the Serbian presidency.
China has been seeking opportunities to deepen ties to the Balkan region and also boost relations with the EU.
The two sides pledged to continue joint efforts in putting the Hungary-Serbia railway into operation as scheduled, and to work with other Central and Eastern European countries on major regional connectivity projects.
China has already invested more than $1 billion, mostly in the form of soft loans, to finance road building and energy projects in Serbia.
Addressing workers and officials at a steelworks bought by a Chinese company, Mr Xi said: “We are developing the One Belt, One Road project”.
Serbia’s central bank governor, Jorgovanka Tabakovic, signed a currency swap deal aimed at boosting trade and investment, while the China Communications Construction Co signed a deal to build a section of a ring road in Belgrade. Belgrade has sought to move closer to the bloc after years of isolation during the 1990s’ conflict, but has also maintained close ties with Russian Federation and China. Serbia is pushing for reindustrialization while Chinese companies have the technology and experience, which hails a win-win future, Liu said.
China’s Hesteel signed a €46 million (S$70 million) deal in April to buy the Smederevo steelworks, a 100-year-old company that was part of US Steel during the early years of this century, before being handed over to the Serbian government.
With China having signed cooperation deals with Poland, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovakia, further steps were taken in synergizing China’s development plan with those of the five CEE countries. He will also visit Uzbekistan for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Chinese and Russian-led security grouping. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.
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