Foundation stone for the bridge Zemun - Borca - Completion scheduled for 2014

Serbian President Boris Tadic, President of the Standing Committee of the All-Chinese People's Congress Wu Bangui have laid today the foundation stone for a bridge of friendship of China and Serbia - Zemun and Borca, which should be completed in 2014.

President Tadic said on that occasion that building of a friendship bridge of China and Serbia represents a new model of building infrastructure in Serbia and that it is another evidence of closeness of the two cultures and two nations.

Tadic said that the construction of this bridge was very important for Serbia and Belgrade, since with its construction, Belgrade would strongly step out to the other bank of the Danube, where they will build a residential and commercial property. Bangui said that the Serbian-Chinese relations were rising and that the good political relations should support the ongoing economic cooperation.

The foundation stone was laid on the Novi Sad highway in Zemun, in the "elbow bend".

Zemun – Borca bridge is the first infrastructure project under the agreement of the Serbian and the Chinese government, which was signed in August last year in Beijing.

(Wu Banguo, Boris Tadic)

The Contract for building of this bridge, which is worth EUR 170 million, was signed in mid-April in Belgrade, by the Minister of NIP Verica Kalanovic, Belgrade Mayor Dragan Djilas and the Chinese company CRBC ("China Road and Bridge Corporation").

Work on the construction will begin in mid-April 2011 and the deadline for the construction of the bridge is three years. The future friendship bridge will be 1507 meters long. As a part of this project, there will be constructed access roads in length of 21.5 kilometers from Novi Sad-way up to the Street of Car Dusan, as well as from Batajnica and Zrenjanin road towards Pancevo bridge.

Zemun – Borca bridge will be a part of the bypass around Belgrade, and should connect Zrenjanin and Pancevo road, by which better traffic connections would be achieved for more than half a million inhabitants of the municipality of Zemun, New Belgrade and Palilula.