Chinese company starts works on European Corridor through Serbia

Chinese Ambassador Li Manchang (R) and Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic (L) attend the opening ceremony of the construction works at the European Corridor E763 through Serbia near the town of Ub, Serbia on Aug. 8, 2014. Chinese company Shandong High-speed started works at the European Corridor E763 through Serbia near the town of Ub on Friday, with the presence of Chinese ambassador Li Manchang. (Xinhua/Nemanja Cabric)

Chinese company Shandong High-speed started works at the European Corridor E763 through Serbia near the town of Ub on Friday, with the presence of Chinese ambassador Li Manchang.

A ceremony at the site of an interchange near the town of Ub, 60 km southwest of Belgrade, that will be built by Shandong High-speed, was also attended by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, Minister of Transport and Construction Zorana Mihajlovic, and president of the municipality Ub Darko Glisic.

The interchange and 10 km of the highway whose construction began on Friday are a segment of a deal with the Chinese company to build 50 km of the European Corridor E763 that will connect the Serbian capital with Montenegro.

According to a contract the company will build two segments between the towns of Obrenovac and Ub and the towns of Lajkovac and Ljig by the end of April 2017.

Vucic said that the construction of European Corridor will boost the economy of the municipalities, after which "Serbia will become a completely new country, in infrastructural sense".

Vucic said "We hope that by 2016, even before deadline, people will be able to travel along this highway from Belgrade to the city of Cacak (150 km to the south)", estimating that when completed, the 200 km long travel from the capital to Mt Zlatibor that now takes three hours will take only 1.5 hours.

Glisic said the construction of the E763 highway will result in the establishment of a large industrial zone surfacing some 100 hectares around the road, which will be largely available to companies "from China and across the world" that wish to do business in Serbia.

"We want to have our people employed and we see a chance for development in the construction of this highway," Glisic explained.