Today, the Minister of Finance, Sinisa Mali, presented the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Chen Bo, with the Draft Medium-Term Cooperation Plan until 2025.
The goal is to promote comprehensive bilateral co-operation between the two countries.
The proposal for the development of the Medium-Term Cooperation Plan was made on the initiative of the Minister of Finance and the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in November 2020, and the draft was made by the Working Group for Investment Cooperation with the People’s Republic of China, which was formed in March 2021.
The interlocutors agreed that the Medium-Term Cooperation Plan will greatly contribute to even stronger cooperation between the two countries, and more efficient implementation of joint projects. As they pointed out, in that way, the “steel friendship” will be even stronger.
The medium-term plan consists of 15 priority areas: tourism, digitalization, free zones, economy, road infrastructure, railway infrastructure, energy, public safety, culture and information, youth and sports, health, environmental protection, education, science and technological development, labor, employment, veterans, social issues and innovation.
The Minister of Finance said that the current cooperation is the most developed in the field of infrastructure, as well as that the construction of infrastructure projects is an absolute priority of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and the Government of RS. As he pointed out, it is important to provide the citizens of Serbia with a better quality of life, to which these projects contribute, as well as to higher economic growth.
In addition to specific proposals of the Serbian side, which have so far been related to infrastructure projects and construction of certain sections of highways, railways, improvement of thermal and hydro power plants, the main emphasis of future cooperation is on digitalization, environmental protection through improvement of communal infrastructure, systems waste and wastewater management, improvement of tourist potentials, exchange of good practice and expertise in order to improve the legal framework in various spheres from culture, public health to public safety.
The Minister of Finance and the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China also discussed the introduction of a direct flight between Belgrade and Beijing or Shanghai, which was previously discussed by the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping. It was concluded that there is a will for such a thing on both sides, and that it is important to agree on all other details in the next period, so that in the second half of next year the first plane can fly directly from the Serbian capital to one of the two Chinese cities, B92 reports.
