China, Serbia vow to lift strategic partnership

BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held talks with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic in Beijing on Thursday, vowing to further promote their bilateral strategic partnership.

Vucic is paying an official visit to China after attending the fourth summit of China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries held in east China's Suzhou city on Tuesday.

Speaking highly of the traditional friendship between China and Serbia, Li said China is willing to improve bilateral ties from a strategic standpoint and long-term perspective so as to transfer high-level political trust into more practical results of cooperation.

He called on both sides to implement construction of signed projects in railways, expressways and power stations, and to create conditions to start construction of the Serbia-Hungary railway as soon as possible.

China supports its enterprises in conducting productivity cooperation with Serbia in areas including steel in the hope of providing more high-quality and low-cost materials for infrastructure construction in Serbia, Li said.

He also encouraged both sides to promote the construction of industrial parks along Danube, and to seek potential cooperation in agricultural technology, small and medium enterprises, culture, education, tourism so as to realize win-win cooperation.

As a close friend to China, Vucic said Serbia is willing to develop a goodwill relationship with China not out of its own interests, but due to Serbian people's sincere love of China.

Hailing the "1+6" cooperation framework proposed by Li during the China-CEE fourth summit for future cooperation, Vucic said Serbia will speed up preparation work of Serbia-Hungary railway.

He also expressed the hope that China could expand its participation in the development of Serbia so as to forge ahead bilateral cooperation and the cooperation between China and 16 CEE countries.

Prior to the talks, Li held a welcoming ceremony for Vucic at the Great Hall of the People.

The two also witnessed the signing of a series of agreements in areas including infrastructure, construction materials, technology, quality control and education.

Serbia signed a strategic partnership with China in August 2009, the first in CEE countries.