Vucic: We owe gratitude to our workers, they are our strength and our future
President Aleksandar Vucic and Construction Minister Zorana Mihajlovic opened the exhibition "Serbia 2019 - the Year of Infrastructure: Nothing is Far Away"
Source: B92, Tanjug
The exhibition, in which as many as five halls showcase implemented and new projects in the field of infrastructure, construction and transport, will be open to citizens on Thursday and Friday, from 12 to 17 hours.
Media representatives had previously been able to view the exhibition, and the first hall, called "Corridor 10", was entered through a model of the "Manajle" tunnel, in which two video beams were installed, representing the tunnel itself. In this hall, there is a large map of Corridor 10 with all the features, then a large model of the Vrla Bridge near Vladicin Han, as well as an information board with photos of the most important objects on the corridor.
After passing through the "toll ramp", one enters the hall "Milos the Great", in which the highway was presented. Here you can read information about the works and what all the workers had to do, so the photo of the Brancic tunnel says that about 300 workers were hired every day to break the tunnel, and that it needed more than 92,000 cubic meters of concrete to build it, along with 5,500 tons of steel.
From there, one enters the "Railway" hall, where a large map of all our railways can be seen, and a model of the most modern Stadler train used in Serbia is set up.
The President and the Minister visited the exhibition "Nothing is far away" which begins with the entrance to the Manajle tunnel.
During his visit, the President particularly addressed the Bridge over the Sava and Kolubara, thanking Chinese workers who participated in the construction.
"Roads are not built by themselves"
The Minister thanked the gathered to mark the joint work of the past five years in the field of infrastructure.
"I won't talk about what we have done, we all already know it, four new highways this year, the next two for sure," she says, adding that we have restored hope and belief that Serbia can do great things.
"This is a year of results for all of us, the results of budgetary and financial stability, as well as the work of all of us", she said, thanking the president for working together each day.
"Nothing is far away in Serbia now", Mihajlovic concluded.
The president then addressed the gathered and said that today we analyse what was done and said that in five years we had built more than in the previous 40.
"All of us in the government are proud of this achievement, every one of us who has put a part of his work and effort into all that", Vucic says, adding that he has, to a small extent, taken part in that great business.
"Roads are not built on their own, no railroads are built on their own, somebody has to do it, somebody has to raise money," he says, adding that it would have been done much earlier if it could.
"If we could, we would have been doing it since 2012. Unfortunately, we could not, but we had to implement fiscal consolidation measures first, to make our country viable, but perhaps only pensioners understood this process best", the president said, thanking the oldest fellow citizens.
"For the fourth year in a row, we have a budget surplus, that has never happened before", Vucic concluded.
"We should thank our workers. They are our strength and our future"
"In 2012, 500 people flew from Nis airport, today 400,000 people, almost 300 times more. Tomorrow is the first flight from Kraljevo to Vienna, the first plane to connect the Raska and Moravian districts with Vienna", he says.
"Today, we have over 60 million passengers on Corridor 10, the airport in Belgrade had three million passengers six years ago, and today there are six million", the president said, urging citizens to visit the exhibition and find out plans for the future.
"From Nis to the border with Macedonia and Bulgaria, there is not a single meter without highway", Vucic says.
"All these projects mean more investments, new factories, so our children will stay in our country. The day after tomorrow, we are opening Obrenovac - Surcin, today I received a delegation that took over RTB Bor, they were desperate when they took it over, today the situation is completely different", he said.
"We will do more motorways and railways. We open apartments for security services people in Vranje in March, we want these people to feel how much the state cares about them. It took a lot of energy and courage to solve such problems", says the President of Serbia.
"I congratulate everyone who participated in these projects, and especially our workers who build our roads with great pride. We owe gratitude to our workers, they are our strength, our future. Long live Serbia", President concluded.
"Plan for the future"
After opening the multimedia exhibition "Serbia 2019 - the Year of Infrastructure", Vucic told reporters that this would be the plan for the future. "A plan for the future that you will be more proud of," Vucic said, emphasizing that it is visible how much Serbia has progressed. He thanked everyone who, despite all the hassle and harangue, supported the dedication in the work.
"Without them, we wouldn't be able to do half of what we did today," Vucic added. He announced that he would open a section of the Obrenovac-Surcin highway in two days, and on December 26, another 27 kilometers of the Ipsilon fork of Corridor 10 towards Kelebija and the Hungarian border.
The president added that workers from China engaged in infrastructure projects in Serbia are doing well and have built a fantastic bridge over the Sava and Kolubara, which will open on Wednesday.
"The Chinese are doing extraordinary work. Come the day after to visit that magnificent bridge. It is across the water all the time, across the Sava and Kolubara, two rivers are bridged," Vucic said when asked by journalists whether the quality of roads operated by Chinese is of the same quality as roads which Europeans constructed.
