Serbia nears completion of 15.5 mln euro transport hub

Infrastructure minister Goran Vesic said on Tuesday that this project enhances logistics, utilises Serbia's railways and roads, and supports economic growth and development.

The statement was issued after Vesic visited the construction site of the terminal in Batajnica along with European Union commissioner for neighbourhood and enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi. The project is financed by a 13.8 million euro grant from the EU, and 1.7 million euro provided by the Serbian government.

The EU projects that Serbia's transport capacities will increase at least eight times in the next 10 years, Varhelyi was quoted as saying in the same statement.

Varhelyi said that the terminal will become a main hub, with plans for additional hubs north towards Novi Sad and Subotica, south towards Nis, and potentially to other ports like the port of Bar on Montenegro's Adriatic coast.

Works on the Batajnica terminal started in November 2020. Back then, the head of the EU delegation to Serbia, Sem Fabrizi, said that the intermodal terminal will reduce transport costs, which have a share of 20% in the price of products in Serbia, whereas the EU average is between 10% and 12%.

An intermodal terminal is a logistics platform specialised in transferring consolidated cargo, i.e. containers, between different modes of transport, providing as well storage space for containers, and usually situated inland, close to major road, rail and sometimes waterway transit routes.

($ = 0.926 euro)