Serbia expects to sign the first agreements for an $800 million loan with Russia for infrastructure next month, a government official said.
Serbian Deputy Finance Minister Goran Radosavljevic will negotiate the “final details” in Moscow next week, including the interest rate and the participation of Serbian and Russian companies, Infrastructure Minister Milutin Mrkonjic said in Belgrade yesterday. The signing of the credit line, agreed by the two nations’ presidents in 2009, will take place in two weeks, he said.
The upgrades for Serbia’s state-owned rail company Zeleznice Srbije include purchasing Russian-made diesel engines for $100 million, the reconstruction of more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) of tracks along Serbia’s main north-south route and the railroad from Belgrade to neighboring Montenegro.
The projects on which Serbia’s government negotiated last year with OAO Russian Railways also include upgrading the 15- kilometer link between Belgrade and Pancevo, the site of the country’s main oil refinery and chemical plants, completing a new railway station in the capital and building a 68-kilometer section between the western towns of Lozinca and Valjevo.
