Chinese company to rehabilitate 7.4-km rail line in Serbia

Serbia signed a contract on Thursday with a Chinese rail firm on the rehabilitation of a 7.4-kilometer rail line in the Serbian capital.

The deal was signed between China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) and Serbian Railways Infrastructure, a joint stock company for public railway infrastructure management.

It was CCECC's first project in Serbia and the first Sino-Serbian cooperation on the railway projects with European Union fund.

The 23.8-million-euro project will be financed from a loan of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

The 7.4-km long stretch of the Junction "G"-Rakovica-Resnik is the entrance to Belgrade from the south.

Trains operate slowly on this segment because of the poor state of the infrastructure.

"We will complete the construction works, repair the power grid as well as rebuild platforms and the station in Rakovica," said general director of Serbian Railways Infrastructure Dusan Garibovic.

In 351 days, this entrance into the Belgrade railway network will be finished, he said.

Zhu Tianran, chief representative of CCECC office in Serbia, said local workers and subcontractors in Serbia will also benefit from the project as they will take part in reconstruction.

"We would like to use local subcontractors because it is good for local employment, while from the Chinese side we will bring experienced engineers, while other subcontractors as well as workers will be from Serbia," he said.

CCECC won the project for the general overhaul of the Junction G-Rakovica-Resnik railway section, part of the Belgrade-Nis-State border railway line, at a public tender that ended on Nov.7, 2016. Endit