The Serbian people hope President Aleksandar Vucic's state visit to China will bring more Chinese investment and joint projects to their country, said a Serbian journalist.
Vucic arrived in Beijing on Sunday to begin a five-day visit to China at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Nikola Dencic, an editor at state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia, said he was eager to visit China during the trip to gain deeper insight into a country with which Serbia is rapidly expanding cooperation.
"The first impression is, it (China) is a country and a culture that should be thoroughly researched. I was reading a lot about China, watching news coverage and documentaries due to my work. But now when you go somewhere in person, then you find out that you really cannot comprehend everything without being somewhere, and I think that would be a good thing for me as a journalist. And of course, there is a lot to explore, a lot about people, a lot about culture, so I'm really hoping that I could do that in this short period," said Dencic.
"An ironclad friend" is a term that President Xi has used to describe Serbia in the context of China's foreign relations. Dencic said that the ironclad bilateral friendship and cooperation between Serbia and China have brought tangible benefits to the people in both countries.
"I think that the China-Serbian bilateral relations are explored in many ways. Maybe the focus, [though] it depends on the time, maybe mostly the focus is on economic cooperation due to a lot of projects that China has in Serbia both economic investments, industry infrastructure. So it is something that we could say that is related to the common life of people and maybe it's somewhere where we see the most benefits. But of course, a lot of times the political relations are explored. We have good, the highest possible level of bilateral relations in politics, and of course, the most important thing for Serbia is the support from China for the territorial integrity and sovereignty and support in all of the international forums. And also, when we speak about China in Serbia, we also pay attention to China's positions in foreign policy, which is also thoroughly researched," the journalist said.
He also expressed hope that Vucic's visit would further strengthen Serbia-China relations by attracting new investments and projects, affirming their "community with a shared future."
"What we heard for both our and Chinese officials is that this visit should try and make the bilateral relations even better. We are expecting record level of new investments. We shall see when the meetings are over. We're speaking about also the projects about infrastructure or investment in the industry, maybe some new Chinese companies in Serbia. But I think that would be one of the most important topics during the talks here in Beijing, and it will certainly prove that Serbia and China did reach that highest level of bilateral relations. Now they're a community with a shared future. So we're all hoping that that future will last for as long as it can," said Dencic.
Serbians expect Vucic's China visit to bring more investment, cooperative projects: journalist
