Serbian Prime Minister Djuro Macut emphasized that Serbia is entering a new phase of high-level cooperation with China, aiming to deepen ties through advanced technology and shared development, following the elevation of bilateral relations to a "community with a shared future."
China and Serbia decided to build a community with a shared future in May last year, an upgrade of their relations from the comprehensive strategic partnership established eight years ago. The decision was declared by visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vucic, during their meeting in the Serbian capital.
When asked about the significance of this elevation of bilateral relations to future cooperation between the two countries, Macut said that this marks a new stage where the two countries will move ahead hand in hand to better promote their development.
"That means that we can step on in the new phase, which is let's do something together and let's improve the way of living, way of behaving in both countries. We are inspired by your development, let's say, and we are really very quickly and very fast developing ourselves, especially in the infrastructure. So we are looking after the Chinese success in this, as I told you in the last few decades, and this is really inspiration for everyone," he said.
"This is Serbia today. This is a country with lots of opportunities. We want to present the healthy country, the green area that could provide lots of healthy issues, but also very good opportunities for work, for the economy, different values that could be the matter of mutual trading, development in education, in health system, in artificial intelligence, etc," said Macut.
The prime minister said that practical cooperation projects like the Serbian section of the Hungary-Serbia railway have proved that the country can better develop itself in the way that China did by learning its experience and technology.
Eying for the future development of Serbia-China relations, Macut said that he expects more cooperation in the sector of technology, which is China's area of expertise.
"I believe that we came to the next phase of our relations. As I told today (Nov 6) in the talks with the companies from China, we have to go to the let's say advanced technology level, because you are a so developed country with the such high technology. So I believe that we came to the new phase, and this phase will be, I truly believe, completed in the next decade. And that's why we have to look far in front of us and to be very perspective in our relations," he said.
Serbian PM looks forward to higher-level cooperation with China
