Goran Aleksic, Acting Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister of the Republic of Serbia, was on a visit to Beijing from 9 to 12 July, where he participated in the 5th Meeting of National Coordinators of the mechanism for Cooperation between China, and Central and Eastern European Countries.

During the three-day meeting, several panels were held to consider new ways of deepening the cooperation at the level of this mechanism, in the context of relations between China and the European Union, but also in the framework of China’s project for creating transport and trade corridor –“the 21st Century Maritime Silk Route Economic Belt”. Also presented were industry potentials of Changchun, the capital ofJilin province in the north of China, where the biggest centre of car industry in the People's Republic of China has emerged.

Acting Assistant Foreign Affairs Minister Aleksic underscored the readiness of the Republic of Serbia to contribute in every way to promoting the work of the China-CEEC forum, on bilateral level – through strengthening the relations with the People's Republic of China, but also by means of cooperation with other countries within the forum. For the Republic of Serbia, the project of modernizing the Belgrade – Budapest railway is of particular importance, as an integral part of the transport network within the “Silk Route Economic Belt” strategy.

Through Serbia’s engagement within the China-CEEC cooperation mechanism, the relations between Serbia and PR China, countries with traditional ties of long-standing friendship and strategic partnership, were added a new dimensionrecognized as having thegreatest potentialin infrastructure cooperation, while Belgrade was the host of the China-CEEC Summit for the first time last year.