Ivona Ladjevac on how the BRI is boosting connectivity & global health governance

Interview Series: Community with a Shared Future for Mankind

EP04: Ivona Ladjevac on how the BRI is boosting connectivity & global health governance

Building a global community of health for all has been a vision brought by China in the face of the global health threat from the COVID-19 pandemic. In recent years, China has been redoubling efforts to enhance international cooperation in the health sector within the “Belt and Road” framework to implement the vision.

Today, we are honored to have Ivona Ladjevac, head of the center for the Belt and Road Initiative at the Institute of International Politics and Economics in Serbia, to share her observations on this topic in this exclusive interview with Guangming Online.

Q1: Smooth logistics for medical and health supplies were crucial for all countries to fight against the pandemic. In this regard, many infrastructure projects along the "Belt and Road" have boosted connectivity. What role did that play in helping Serbia fight against the pandemic?

Ivona Ladjevac: It was very important, because, of course, there are corridor lines and airplanes and everything, but it was very important that there were transportation lines that were used by the railway.

What was the major problem at that point was the selfishness of some countries, and they didn't really want to allow those transport lines to pass their territories without leaving part of the package to them. That was the main problem. But luckily for us, we had really excellent relations with China, but also with other countries in the region. And Serbia was the first country that even got the vaccine from China.

And in that sense, it was very important that we had a good connection with Greece and the Pireus port, because if something was brought by ships, it was easier to reach us. But among all is the most important that we renewed the Belgrade-Tianjin airline. It didn't happen during the pandemic but at that time we were talking about it between China and Serbia. And now we have this for a month (up to January 2023). I think maybe now we have this stable airplane line between China and Serbia, and the planes are going there every Saturday.

So if anyone doubt how or the importance, of these infrastructure projects during the COVID 19, they should have realized how important it is to have these highways, the railways and everything.

Q2: The BRI has provided more than channels for the transportation of medical personnel and supplies in the fight against COVID-19. We also see China increase its investment in public health infrastructure in many BRI countries, such as investing in healthcare enterprises and setting up healthcare training schools and hospitals. From Serbia’s perspective, how will this contribute to public health governance and the public health system in the long run?

Ivona Ladjevac: It is a huge contribution. And I can speak from our perspective in which China helped us with their experience.

As I mentioned before, we had this medical team of doctors and the medical supplies. What is the most important, we got two laboratories for detecting virus. And now we also have this current project. It is building a factory here near the Belgrade that is meant to be used for producing vaccines against COVID-19. Of course, there will be production lines that can secure us to produce vaccines of other origins.

Now we know that there is kind of danger that was caused by the COVID-19, yet we can't say, if something else wouldn't show up tomorrow. So it is important to be ready for that and to work more on cooperation. So we should exchange our experience our medical technicians, our doctors, and also to invest more in these facilities that can be used for treating the ill people.

So in that respect, yes, we are really proud of our cooperation with China, not only on bilateral level, but those under the BRI.