New milestone for Belgrade-Budapest high-speed railway

CGTN Europe

A new high-speed #train line connecting #Hungary and #Serbia is nearing completion.  The Serbian Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Anita Dimovski says that it’ll improve the quality of life for people across the two countries.  CGTN's Aljosa Milenkovic reports.  #travel #fasttrain #traveling #ChinaEurope2024

Transcript

00:00When László moved to Hungary from neighboring Serbia in 1997,

00:06the journey back home by car or train will take all day.

00:18But when the new train line is completed, his journey will be cut by half,

00:23something László sees as a positive move.

00:30There was a big announcement to renew the Belgrade-Budapest line.

00:34It will be a modern attempt.

00:36If it starts, it will be a great experience.

00:41I think it will introduce Serbia.

00:43Track laying works on the Hungarian side of the Budapest-Belgrade railway have resumed.

00:49It's part of the construction of one of Europe's major projects

00:52being built by China's Belt and Road Initiative.

00:55The idea is to upgrade the 350-kilometer route between the two capitals,

01:01connecting them to another BRI project, the port of Piraeus,

01:05putting into practice the revival of ancient trading routes.

01:11This is the first high-speed train in the region.

01:16This goes exactly on the traditional east-west trade routes,

01:24so that will have a very important impact on the region.

01:30This railway project will boost the country's economy

01:34and it will become a logistics hub for cargo coming in from China.

01:39It is also likely that the number of travelers will increase three times.

01:45But there has been criticism over its completion,

01:48with the government saying that it will be done soon

01:52and that they're already looking into further cooperation with China.

02:00We are going to finish the project in just one year time

02:05and we are looking for other opportunities and other connection points as well,

02:13other infrastructure development projects as well, railways, highways, logistics centers.

02:19The Chinese know-how is on a very high level in these fields.

02:26The Hungarian government hopes that once this project takes off,

02:30other projects will follow on the same tracks.

02:34Evangelos Cipsas for CGTN, Budapest.

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