On June 18, 2016 local time, President Xi Jinping met in Belgrade with Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia.

Xi Jinping stressed that China and Serbia are good friends and important cooperative partners with mutual trust. Both sides have conducted close high-level exchanges and yielded prominent cooperation results in various fields in recent years. The two sides agreed to promote bilateral relations to comprehensive strategic partnership, which will inject new impetus into practical cooperation in all areas between both countries and promote bilateral relations to a new level. Under the new situation, China-Serbia cooperation enjoys more integration points and shares broader prospect. The two sides should make persistent efforts to steadily push forward cooperation in major transportation infrastructure projects. China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Serbia to put the Budapest-Belgrade railway into full operation and open it to traffic at an early date. The two countries should accelerate the docking of the "Belt and Road" initiative with Serbia's national development strategy and promote the Smederevo steel mill deal and other major projects to perform as expected, so as to increase local employment, improve the level of people's livelihood, promote Serbia's economic growth and achieve mutual benefits as well as win-win results. The two sides should actively expand cooperation in such areas as economy, trade and finance, and expand trade scale. Both countries need to enhance cooperation in customs, taxation and other areas, so as to provide strong support and assurance for the development of bilateral trade. The two sides should also deepen cooperation in science and technology to achieve innovation-driven development and conduct close people-to-people and cultural exchanges, so as to consolidate the public opinion foundation of bilateral relations.

Xi Jinping pointed out that the cooperation between China and the Central and Eastern European countries (16+1 cooperation) has maintained a rapid momentum of development and come to a harvest time. Both sides should make "16+1 cooperation" a key undertaking for the "Belt and Road" initiative to integrate in the European economic circle and a priority area for the implementation of China-EU four major partnerships featuring peace, growth, reform and civilization. China is ready to work with Serbia to promote a smooth development of the "16+1 cooperation" at a higher level, so as to better benefit the two peoples.

Aleksandar Vucic expressed that Serbia warmly welcomes President Xi Jinping's historic visit to Serbia again. It is in line with the interests of both peoples to deepen bilateral traditional friendship, political mutual trust, and mutually beneficial cooperation in a comprehensive way. The Serbian government attaches great importance to the relationship with China, and the country is committed to expanding cooperation with China in wider areas. Serbia welcomes more investment from Chinese enterprises and is willing to join hands with China to reap harvests of major projects between the two countries at an early date.

Wang Huning, Li Zhanshu, Yang Jiechi, all members of the Serbian cabinet and others attended the meeting.