BELGRADE (Serbia), July 4 (SeeNews) – Serbia's government plans to open talks with North Macedonia and Greece on the potential launch of a railway corridor linking Hungary's capital Budapest to Greece via Serbian territory, infrastructure minister Zorana Mihajlovic said on Thursday.
"We will talk with North Macedonia and Greece to see if they will join this corridor, because it is not enough to only have a modernised line from Belgrade to Budapest," Mihajlovic said in a video file published on the website of public broadcaster RTS.
In November 2017, Serbia started the overhaul of the section of the railway line linking Belgrade to Budapest on its territory. The overhaul represents the first cross-border project carried out by Serbia, Hungary and China in the framework of the China-Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) cooperation initiative.
"It is in our interest to attract North Macedonia and Greece to the project. We hope that they will show interest," Mihajlovic said.
In July 2018, Serbia signed a 943 million euro ($1.064 billion) deal with China Railway International (CRI) and China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) for the overhaul of the 108 km-long Novi Sad-Subotica railway section of the rail line to Budapest.
CRI and CCCC are also the main contractors of the project for the overhaul of the Belgrade-Stara Pazova section of the Belgrade-Budapest railway, which is part of European transport Corridor X.
($ = 0.88633 euro)