World construction giant wants to build in Serbia - China State Construction Engeneering Corporation interested in both state-owned and private projects

The largest construction company, China State Construction Engeneering Corporation (CSCEC) is interested to build in Serbia, company Vice President (for overseas operations), Vei Jan, said on Monday.

After the meeting at the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce, he expressed expectation that CSCEC would get an opportunity to cary out some construction project in Serbia, pointing out that they were interested both for state-owned and private projects.

Jan said that the company delegation visiting Serbia met the first vice president of the Government of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic and the minister of energy, Zorana Mihajlovic, and that they discussed projects being prepared in Serbia.

He hopes that CSCEC will set up partnership relation with local companies in Serbia, that they will cooperate on projects and open new vacancies and markets.

Jan reminded of a credit line of the state of China's totalling USD 10 billion for 16 countries of Eastern Europe, including Serbia, explaining that CSCEC can use it.

CSCEC is building all residential and commercial buildings at the height of up to 660 meters, bridges, airports, railroads, subways, hotels, resorts, hospitals, wind parks and solar power plants, and it is also involved in designing and engineering.

In more than 100 countrie, we have completed 5,000 projects, in addition to the home country, four major international destinations are USA, Singapore, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates.

CSCEC is the only Chinese which entered the U.S. construction market, but in Europe, as Jan said, they do not have projects except for some agreements with Russia and Kazakhstan

We are very interested to start cooperation in Eastern Europe, we expect progress, CSCEC head pointed out, adding that Serbia’s joining EU would contribute to higher reference and bigger market.

The company has more than 200,000 employees, 85% are engineers, and as Jan explained, labor costs from China are expensive and they were increasingly hiring local workforce.

A monthly worker’s wage is EUR 1,000 EUR, excluding food, air transportation, accommodation, while engineers earn EUR 4,000.

Local companies are not competitors but partners and we can help start of a project that requires financial assistance and support, Jen said.

The President of the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce, Milan Jankovic, said that Serbia has projects and is ready to offer them to partners such as CSCEC.

That company, as Jankovic said, can already enter Serbia through railway knots and corridors.

We need that kind of partner so that we could show that we can be interesting to big investors, he added.