China’s Sinohydro candidate for reconstruction of railroad to Montenegro – Working group formed to consider offer for section from Valjevo to Bijelo Polje

The Serbian government has formed a Working Group for the implementation of the project for the reconstruction and modernization of the section of the railroad Valjevo-Vrbnica-state border with Montenegro (Bijelo Polje), which will be responsible for analyzing the offer of the Chinese company Sinohydro Corporation Limited and preparing the contractual documentation for the implementation of the project.

As stated in the decision published in the Official Gazette, the task of the Working Group is to propose measures within the competence of the institutions involved in the project in order to analyze the offer of the Chinese company and determine the value of the project, as well as to prepare the contractual documentation that will regulate the commercial and financial relations of the contracting parties.

Milan Petrovic, Acting Assistant Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, has been appointed as the Chairman of the Working Group, while his deputy is Zoran Jevtic from the Serbian Railway Infrastructure Company.

The Working Group also includes representatives of the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance, the Public Debt Administration, the Serbian Railway Infrastructure and the Railway Directorate, while the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure will provide expert and administrative-technical support to its work.

The Chairman of the Working Group will be able to include representatives of other state bodies, organizations and experts in its work, if necessary.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic recently stated during a visit to the newly built Unified Dispatch Center for Train Traffic Management in Belgrade that the accelerated reconstruction and modernization of the Valjevo-Vrbnica railroad section, approximately 210 kilometers long, which, as he stated, was in very poor condition, was planned.

He emphasized that this was an extremely important route for western Serbia and added that the public would be provided with an insight into the condition of the railroad, which he assessed as “desperate.”

– Today we also talked about the Valjevo–Vrbnica section, it is 210 kilometers long, extremely important for our western Serbia. I will forward it to you today so that you can see the desperate condition of that part of our railroad, and I wonder if it is possible that since 1976 no one has touched it, that we have agreed to work quickly on repairing everything possible so as not to endanger people’s safety, because it is incredible how bad it is. So, from, I would say, Kosjeric all the way to the border with Montenegro, the condition of the railroad is very, very bad. We made this section from Valjevo to Vrbnica good, now we will intervene in every part and speed it up – said Vucic.

The president announced that a working group would be formed to deal with accelerating the work and preparing the reconstruction project.

He emphasized that the railroad had been in poor condition for decades and that its renovation was necessary for the sake of safety and the development of traffic.

– At the same time, we have other big plans. Just so you understand, just for the works on Valjevo–Vrbnica it will hardly be below two billion euros, I'm not talking about dinars. When you have two billion euros, then those are huge investments. There is also a representative of the Ministry of Finance, so we talked about the method of financing, the impact on public debt, primarily on the deficit in the future, because we have to take care of that, but we have to ensure safe traffic. You remember when the Americans started with the Inflation Reduction Act, their central point was infrastructure maintenance. We also have a problem - Stellantis is now exporting the most and making a dramatic contribution to the Serbian economy, although everyone said that would not happen. But they export cars through the Port of Bar and we have to solve that, to start manufacturing; it will take us about five or six years for complete modernization – said the president.

Vlada Republike Srbije

Infrastruktura Železnice Srbije Beograd

SINOHYDRO Predstavništvo Beograd

Government of Serbia

Sinohydro Corporation Limited

Serbian Railways Infrastructure

Zoran Jevtić

Milan Petrović

Valjevo Vrbnica Bijelo Polje railroad