Serbian media welcome President Xi's visit

A dozen leaders of Chinese and Serbian media organizations attend the China-Serbia Media Dialogue on Friday in Belgrade. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Serbian media organizations expressed their willingness to deepen cooperation with their Chinese counterparts, as relations between the two countries are being upgraded thanks to President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the country.

Serbian news agency, newspaper, TV station and website representatives made the remarks on Friday at the China-Serbia Media Dialogue, hosted by China's State Council Information Office in Belgrade, the country's capital. A dozen Chinese and Serbian news bosses attended the event.

Xi left Beijing on Friday for state visits to Serbia, Poland and Uzbekistan.

Participants at the forum said Xi's visit will have a great impact on the social and economic development of both countries.

Bojan Brkic Zamenik, deputy editor-in-chief at the Radio Television of Serbia news desk, said his organization planned to deploy several hundred journalists to cover President Xi's visit thoroughly.

"I would love to see more exchanges and cooperation with Chinese news organizations," he said, adding that his organization would sign a cooperation agreement with China Radio International on Saturday.

Ljiljana Smajlovic, editor-in-chief of Politika and the president of the Serbian Journalists' Association, said Serbian journalists harbored friendly feelings towards China, and that the Serbian people had a growing interest in the country.

Guo Weimin, vice-minister of the State Council Information Office, said news organizations had the responsibility of pushing forward the relations between the two countries.

"I was delighted to see Serbian media covered many important issues including China's Belt and Road Initiative," he said.

Guo said compared with the cooperation in other fields, the collaboration between media organizations from two countries had much room to be improved.

"Participants proposed a lot of good ideas at this forum, including content exchange and joint interviews," he said. "I hope all good ideas could be realized."