February 19 (SeeNews) - Serbia plans to start the construction of a second line of the Belgrade metro in 2023, finance minister Sinisa Mali said.
The construction of the second metro line will be completed in 2030, Mali said on Thursday, as quoted in a government statement.
Earlier this month, infrastructure minister Tomislav Momirovic said the country will launch the construction of the first line of the Belgrade metro in November and will complete it in 2028.
The Serbian government signed in January a memorandum of understanding with PowerChina and French companies Alstom and Egis Rail for the construction of the Belgrade metro.
According to the preliminary design of the project, the Belgrade metro network will initially consist of two lines of 22 km and 19.8 km in length respectively and will integrate four urban railway lines. The first line of the metro will run along the Sava river, crossing downtown Belgrade, and will link the Makisko Polje area in the southwestern part of the Serbian capital to the Mirijevo neighbourhood in the northeast, near the Danube river. The second line will connect Zemun, a northwestern suburb of Belgrade, to the Mirijevo neighbourhood through the New Belgrade urban municipality.