Boris Tadić offered port and duty-free zone to the Chinese

Expressing a great satisfaction with his third visit to friendly country of China, the President of Serbia, Boris Tadić, pointed out during his speech at the Trade-Investment Forum that good bilateral relations between the two countries would be confirmed by the signing of the Agreement on strategic cooperation, and he added that it was historical moment for Serbia.

– In addition to political relations, which are on the highest level, Serbian wants to significantly improve economic relations with friendly China, and we are very interested in intensifying and strenghtening commercial relations – said Tadić and pointed out that the yesterday's meeting was "the proof that the intention is mutual".

The President of Serbia noticed that the Chinese Government had achieved excellent results with the programme of measures for fight against the global financial crisis, and that it had managed to maintain the announced growth of gross national production of 8%, thus contributing significantly to the stabilization of global economy.

– The Government of Serbia was among the first in southeast Europe to introduce some serious and very voluminuous measures for alleviation of the effects of the global economic crisis – Tadić pointed out and added:

– As far as foreign investments are concerned, they are safe, and Serbia is, I repeat, politically stable country, which is very important for foreign investments. All foreign companies that invested in Serbia still operate very well, and they are all satisfied with the achieved results. Some of your companies, such as "Huawei" and ZTE, are already present and successfully operate in Serbia. That is a good sign, and we want other companies that are here today to come and invest in Serbia.

Pointing out that Serbia has definitely decided to enter the family of modern European countries, Tadić estimated that the central geopolitical position of our country in the Balkans made Serbia the excellent place for cooperation of all regional countries.

- Serbia is the only country in Europe that has signed the contract with EU, as well as with Russian Federation, Turkey, Belarus, and CEFTA region. These contracts on free trade concern the market with over 800m people - said Tadić.

Pointing out that Serbia has the privilege of being situated on Pan-European transportation "Corridor 10" and on the largest European river "Corridor 7", which connects the North Sea and the Black Sea, Tadić suggested the construction of a new modern port on the Danube and a duty-free zone for production activities of Chinese companies as a new form of cooperation between the economies of the two countries.

– Continuous investments, including the investments in large infrastructural projects, primarily in the domain of transportation, represent one of the key goals of the economic programme of the Government of Republic of Serbia – Tadić pointed out.

– That is why I am especially happy with the fact that our two governments are going to sign the Agreement on economic and technical cooperation in field of infrastructure in Peking, which will significantly improve our cooperation in this domain – Tadić added.

The President of Serbia pointed out that our country would become a big building site in the following period, and that our Government was willing to enable 1 billion EUR worth of infrastructural works in Serbia to Chinese building companies: - We plan to have five bridges across the Danube and the Sava built only in Belgrad and its surroundings. Construction of one of these bridges, Zemun–Borča bridge, will be made possible thanks to the loan of Chinese Exim Bank, and with the engagement of the companies from China.

According to the words of Boris Tadić, voluminous infrastructural works were commenced in Serbia in 2009. Completion of the highway to Bulgaria, Macedonia and Hungary is in the pipeline, as well as commencement of works on the highway to central Serbia:

– In addition to traffic infrastructure, we have also started realization of significant projects in field of civil engineering, telecommunications, and, especially, energy, since one of the priorities of the Government of Republic of Serbia is construction of power facilities: construction of two steam power plants powered by lignite and one gas power plant, exploitation of remaining hydro-potential of the two rivers - the Danube and the Sava, and commencement of works on construction of gas pipeline "Južni tok".

Estimating that the strategic partnership between Peking and Belgrade was going to enable further improvement of cooperation between the two countries on all levels, Tadić pointed out one more time that the strategic goal of Serbia was membership in European Union, and that we were "thankful for the support of our Chinese firends on that path, and China should know that it is going to have a great friend in European Union in the future".

(Note: complete text is taken over from newspaper "Politika" of August 20, 2009)