The fast road from Sarajevo to Belgrade and reconstruction of the railway on the same route are among the most important projects that were agreed during the recent visit of the delegation of BiH to Serbia.
“In the next ten days, the Minister of Communications and Transport Ismir Jusko and Minister of Construction, Transport, and Infrastructure of Serbia Zorana Mihajlovic, should sign a joint letter of intent on the construction of the fast road Sarajevo-Belgrade, which they will send to the Turkish investors,” said Igor Pejic, Secretary of the Ministry of Communications and Transport of BiH.
The route of the fast road Sarajevo-Belgrade should lead via Tuzla and Bijeljina, or south through Visegrad and Sandzak. According to Pejic, Serbia would prefer the second option, since they are already building a section of this motorway in this direction. However, the first step is to harmonize the views of the responsible entity ministries on this issue, says Pejic.
“When it comes to the reconstruction of the railway, they agreed in principle to reconstruct it and we do not see any impediment why not to connect Belgrade and Sarajevo by railway and restore the significance that the railroad had 20 or 30 years ago. This is something that would mean a lot to BiH, especially when it comes to cargo transport. Like it or not, we are “condemned” to each other. It is clear that BiH will hardly place it in Norway, Finland, and Denmark… And we are competitive in Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, and this is extremely important,” says Pejic.
Reconstruction of the railway will open a number of opportunities that are indirectly related to Corridor 5C because that corridor does not include only the highway, but the railway corridor as well.
“We will immediately form teams of experts from the competent entity authorities to determine which is the fastest way to reconstruct the railway as soon as possible and start to transport cargo. Of course, the railway will include the transport of passengers as well, since realistically, railway transport is not competitive to road transport and we should not expect some million digits.
During the visit of BH delegation to Belgrade, we also discussed the so-called “Walter’s road.” It is a tourist trip that would go from Belgrade through Zlatibor and Visegrad to Sarajevo, and it is primarily intended for Chinese tourists.
The Government of Serbia estimated that “Walter’s road,” could attract at least 20,000 tourists from the world’s most populous country every year, and BiH would also gain as a partner in this project.
“A large number of Chinese tourists visit Serbia every year, and because of the great popularity of the movie “Walter defends Sarajevo” in China, and they are always interested in visiting Sarajevo and seeing the locations where the film was shot. In this regard, the Serbian side asked us to make changes to the visa regime, so that Chinese visitors who come to Serbia can enter BiH and can stay here for 72 hours without a visa.”
(Source: faktor.ba)
