Photo taken on March 25, 2021 shows the construction site of the Belgrade-Budapest high-speed railway in Belgrade, Serbia. (Photo by Wang Wei/Xinhua)
The Serbian president said the 75-kilometer-long railway section was built by Chinese and Russian companies. German companies installed surveillance and the trains were manufactured in Switzerland.
NOVI SAD, Serbia, March 19 (Xinhua) -- An inauguration ceremony was held at the railway station in Novi Sad, Serbia's second largest city, on Saturday for the Belgrade-Novi Sad section of the 350-kilometer Belgrade-Budapest railway.
The ceremony was attended by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, as well as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and representatives of the Chinese and Russian embassies in Serbia.
The Serbian president said the 75-kilometer-long railway section was built by Chinese and Russian companies. German companies installed surveillance and the trains were manufactured in Switzerland.
Photo taken on May 30, 2020 shows the construction site of the Belgrade-Budapest railway in Stara Pazova, Serbia. (Dimitrije Goll/Serbian President's Office/Handout via Xinhua)
Orban congratulated the Serbians on the newly built railway, saying that the two countries have historical good ties.
"In the past 70 years we have been connecting countries in the east-west direction and forgot the importance of north-south connections," Orban said, "this resulted in an inappropriate situation that it took too many hours to arrive from Belgrade to Budapest."
"So we made an alliance with President Vucic aiming to change this, and we will succeed in this effort," Orban added.
Once finished, trains will run at a speed up to 200 km/h between Belgrade and Budapest, bringing the Balkans closer to central Europe.
The Belgrade-Budapest railway project is a flagship project within the China-Central and Eastern European countries cooperation platform.
Workers are seen at the construction site of the Belgrade-Budapest railway in Stara Pazova, Serbia, May 30, 2020.