Swedes to help modernization of Serbia railways - memorandum on cooperation in the area of railway traffic signed

The Minister of Infrastructure of Serbia, Milutin Mrkonjić, and the Ambassador of Sweden to Belgrade signed the memorandum yesterday on cooperation between the governments of Serbia and Sweden in the area of railway traffic and announced bigger participation of Swedish companies in Serbia's railway sector.

The Memorandum anticipates provision of aid to Serbian railways in the field of new technologies, Swedish experts' contribution to elaboration of the project documentation for the needs of Serbian Railways, as well as education of mixed Serbian-Swedish Task force for cooperation.

Krister said in the Government of Serbia that the signing of the Memorandum showed that Serbia was ready to deepen the cooperation with Sweden with the aim of modernizing Serbian railways.

- There is a strong interest of Swedish companies in the signing of this memorandum. One example is Ericsson, which is interested in entering Serbian market in the area of signaling equipment - said Mrkonjić and pointed to the need for better cooperation between Serbia and Sweden in order for Serbian railways to be modernized as soon as possible.

The Minister added that Serbia had good experience in the cooperation with Sweden and expressed belief that Serbian Railways would have a great benefit from the signed memorandum.

The CEO of Serbian Railways, Milovan Marković, said that that public company would do its best to reform Serbian railways in as short time as possible in order to make it competitive in European market. Marković announced that Serbian Railways would submit the plans for cooperation to Sweden very soon.

The Ministry of Infrastructure suggests cooperation in procurement of freight cars, electric motor and diesel-motor trains for transportation of passengers, modernization of capacities for maintenance of the means of transportation, procurement of machines and equipment for maintenance of infrastructure, as well as procurement of mobile manipulators for loading and unloading goods.

Serbia is also interested in cooperation in construction of container terminals on Corridor 10, procurement of new information technologies and in the field of digitization of the telecommunications network of Serbian Railways by means of optical infrastructure, which will enable creation of a modern data transfer network.