The friendship between China and Serbia has been hailed as “ironclad” by Chinese President Xi Jinping, after decades of cooperation and partnership, from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to a free trade agreement (FTA).
“Iron friends” or “iron brothers” – as strong as metal – this is how Chinese people refer to their closest friends.
“Woo-woo” trilled the whistle, as a train arrived at Serbia’s Novi Sad station and was warmly welcomed by locals on March 19, 2022. This marked the official opening of the 80-kilometer-long, Chinese-built Belgrade-Novi Sad high-speed railway.
By March of this year, the railway had transported over 6.83 million passenger trips at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour between Serbia’s capital and second-largest city.
The line is also part of the 341-kilometer Belgrade-Budapest railway, a flagship project under the China-proposed BRI. Once completed and operational, travel time between the Serbian and Hungarian capitals will be reduced from 8 hours to approximately 3.5 hours.