SERBIA

President Xi Jinping and visiting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic pledged on Tuesday to boost pragmatic cooperation between China and Serbia in various fields, especially in joint construction of the Belt and Road, to translate the countries' traditional friendship into concrete cooperation results.

They witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents, including the midterm action plan for Belt and Road cooperation, a memorandum of understanding on industrial and investment cooperation and a free-trade agreement, after their meeting in Beijing.

During the meeting, Xi hailed the ironclad friendship between the two countries, saying that China-Serbia ties have withstood changes in the international situation, setting an example for friendly relations between China and European countries.

Xi emphasized that in the face of profound changes in the international landscape unseen in a century, both sides should view their relations from a strategic standpoint and long-term perspective, firmly support each other on their core interests and major concerns, and support each other in choosing their own development path.

China firmly supports Serbia in safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and is willing to continue to strengthen alignment with Serbia on development strategies, transforming the traditional friendship between them into more practical cooperation results, he said.

Xi underlined the need for both sides to work together to build and operate the Hungary-Serbia railway project well, give full play to the economic and social benefits of projects such as the Chinese-invested Smederevo steel mill, and solidly promote cooperation in key areas such as infrastructure construction.

Both countries should actively explore new growth drivers for cooperation and comprehensively strengthen cooperation to renew their ironclad friendship in the new era, he added.

Vucic said he led a large delegation of the Serbian government to attend the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, demonstrating Serbia's respect for, friendship with and the importance it attaches to China.

China has always respected and treated Serbia as a partner on an equal footing, and provided valuable support to Serbia when it was in times of difficulty, he said.

CAO DESHENG