CONSTRUCTION, TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURE 2021
INTERVIEW
VELJKO KOVACEVIĆ, ASSISTANT MINISTER IN CHARGE OF WATER TRANSPORT & NAVIGATION SAFETY
We Have Both Vision And
IMPLEMENTATION It is important for civilisation that we build highways, but without a developed railway network, modern ports and intermodal terminals, we won't give our economy a chance to efficiently produce and export. I believe that during this year and next we are awaited by the realisation of precisely those transport projects that lead to Serbia's full inclusion in Europe's trade flows.
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here does Serbia stand today when it comes to the country’s more active involvement in European trade flows? I believe that the optimal and illustrative answer to this question would be a comparison of where Serbia was until 2014 and where we are today. I would remind you that until 2014, we hadn’t managed to organise ourselves sufficiently as a society even to use what has been given to us by the nature of things, i.e. by our geographical position. That which was started by generations several decades ago – and that is the construction of a highway that would connect Serbia with Hungary and Central Europe to the north, and with North Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey to the south and southeast – we continued in 2014, I would say in a sufficiently organised and efficient way for the first time, and completed in the summer of 2019. However, I actually view 2014 as a crucial year for this society in a way, because I believe that what was launched then, and the way it was launched, as well as the plans that were defined that year, irreversibly initiated a process that will ultimately change the image of this country entirely. The then Government, the prime minister of which, I will remind you, was Aleksandar Vučić, defined priorities for the development of transport and began working according to that action plan. What is of essential
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