Xi Focus-Closeup: Steel testament to iron-clad friendship

BEIJING -- "I feel extremely excited and proud to have received a letter of reply from President Xi Jinping," said Stefan Nesic, a worker at the Chinese-invested Smederevo Steel Mill.

Established in 1913 in the city of Smederevo, the steel mill was once hailed as "the pride of Serbia." In its glory days, the pillar state-owned enterprise supplied around 40 percent of the city's fiscal revenue and sustained nearly one-third of its residents. However, during the late 1990s, declining competitiveness and poor management pushed the plant to the verge of closure.

In 2016, China's HBIS Group acquired the Smederevo Steel Mill. It was later renamed Hesteel Serbia.

Just in a couple of months, the steel mill began to make profit thanks to China's advanced technology and management systems, ensuring job security for over 5,000 employees and bringing peace and prosperity to thousands of families.

Recently, 30 Serbian workers from the steel mill wrote a letter to President Xi Jinping, introducing the recent development of the mill and expressing their gratitude for his support in facilitating the project's success.

On April 29, Xi replied to the Serbian workers of the Hesteel Serbia, encouraging them to make new contributions to the China-Serbia friendship.

"I didn't expect President Xi Jinping to reply so quickly!" exclaimed Nenad Cvetanovic, a steel plant worker. Cvetanovic said the steel plant has invested in new equipment, such as blast furnace gas holders and heating furnaces. "Our lives are getting better and better."

However, the connection between the Chinese president and this steel plant in Serbia did not just start this year. In 2016, several months after the acquisition, Xi visited the plant. He went to the workshop and the staff canteen to talk with the workers.

Vladan Mihailovic, chief operating officer of the steelworks, remembered that he guided Xi to the hot strip mill, explaining to him technical characteristics of the plant and having tea with the Chinese president.

"Mr. President, I can promise you only one thing, that we will put all our knowledge, all our skills and efforts and work very hard to make success of this project," he recalled.

"If I have the chance to talk to him again, I'd say, Mr. President, I do believe that our promise is fulfilled," he told Xinhua after it was announced that Xi will pay a state visit to Serbia this week.

The development of the steel mill is just an epitome of the China-Serbia iron-clad friendship, which has been forged with concrete actions.

In May 2008, after the 8.0-magnitude Wenchuan earthquake in southwest China, the Serbian government donated many tents from its military reserves to the disaster-stricken areas in China.

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging globally, the Chinese government dispatched a team of medical experts to Serbia to assist in the country's epidemic prevention and control efforts. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic went to the airport to welcome the experts and kissed China's national flag.

"Friends are the fruits of time," Xi quoted this Serbian proverb in an article he wrote before he visited Serbia in 2016. During that visit, China and Serbia established a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Over the past eight years, under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China-Serbia relations have achieved leapfrog development, with increasingly close high-level exchanges and deepening political mutual trust, providing a solid political foundation for cooperation in various fields.

As a result, the synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Serbia's re-industrialization strategy and the vision 2025 continues to deepen, yielding fruitful results. For example, the E763 highway section from New Belgrade to Surcin, undertaken by Chinese enterprises, was opened to traffic last year.

Xi's visit is widely believed to further consolidate the iron-clad friendship and strengthen the two countries' cooperation under the BRI framework.