Budapest-Belgrade railway resumes freight operations in Hungary

Freight services on the Hungarian section of the Budapest-Belgrade railway officially resumed just after midnight on Friday, with the first train departing from Budapest's Ferencvaros station.

The Budapest-Belgrade railway, a flagship project under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is a key infrastructure undertaking jointly built by China, Hungary, and Serbia to link the two capitals.

The Hungarian section, spanning approximately 158.6 km, is an electrified line designed for both passenger and freight transport, with a maximum speed of 160 km per hour.

Construction of the Hungarian section, jointly undertaken by China Railway Group Limited and local Hungarian firms, began in July 2020 and entered the civil engineering construction phase in February 2022.

"The train journey between Budapest and Belgrade used to take eight hours. Now, with the Budapest-Belgrade railway, it has been reduced to three hours and a half. This is also a major boost for Hungarian logistics companies and many other businesses," said Levente Horváth, director of the Eurasia Center.

Levente said that the Hungary-Serbia railway is expected to be extended to the Port of Piraeus in Greece in the future to further strengthen links across Central and Eastern Europe, enhancing Hungary's connectivity with neighboring countries, improving travel conditions for residents along the route, and promoting regional economic and social development.

The project marks the first time that Chinese railway technology and equipment have been aligned with the European Union's Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI).

The Serbian section of the railway became fully operational last October.

It is unfair, unreasonable and unfeasible to demand China to join nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia and the United States at the current stage, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning at a press briefing in Beijing on Friday.

She made the statement in response to a media query on U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's Thursday remarks on this issue.

"China has made its position clear on this matter on multiple occasions. As a country with a massive nuclear arsenal, the United States bears a special and primary responsibility to earnestly advance nuclear disarmament, which represents the broad consensus of the international community. China's nuclear forces are not in the same league as those of the U.S. and Russia. At the current stage, it is unfair, unreasonable, and unfeasible to demand China participate in so-called trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations among China, the U.S., and Russia," she said.