Chinese companies are working on building a new bridge over the Sava River in Belgrade, Serbia, but key details about the contracts, the contractor selection process, and the project's terms are not publicly available, Radio Free Europe (RFE) reports today.
The bridge is being built in the middle of the elite residential and commercial project "Belgrade on the Water", on the site where until July there was a steel bridge built in 1942, during World War II.
Parts for the new bridge are being made in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, at a facility run by the Chinese state-owned company China State Construction Engineering.
Half of the bridge's steel structure has been transported to Serbia from there, Serbian Finance Minister Siniša Mali announced on Instagram in November. According to his previous announcements, the bridge will be completed by the end of 2026.
This is another project in Serbia in which Chinese companies were engaged without a tender, and the job was contracted based on an intergovernmental agreement between Serbia and China.
The Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure and the City of Belgrade did not respond to RFE/RL's questions about the construction of this bridge.
The estimated value of demolishing the old bridge and building a new one is 94,1 million euros, announced the Serbian Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure.
Nemanja Nenadić from the Belgrade-based NGO "Transparency Serbia" says that the absence of any public bidding affects the price of the project.
"We can only assume that the price is higher (than it would have been in the tender) because the company that won the job has no motive to offer better conditions when it knows it has no competition," he says.
The contractor for this project is another state-owned Chinese company, PowerChina.
It is engaged in a number of infrastructure projects in Serbia, including the construction of an exhibition space for the international specialized exhibition EXPO, another project for which public procurement is not announced.
This company did not respond to RFE/RL about why the bridge is being built by another Chinese company and whether PowerChina hired it.
This has been a particularly controversial issue in Serbia since a canopy collapsed at the Novi Sad Railway Station in November 2024, killing 16 people.
The station was part of the project to modernize the railway from Novi Sad to the border with Hungary, in which a consortium of Chinese companies China Railway International (CRIC) and China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) was engaged, without a tender.
These companies are included in the investigation of the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime in Belgrade, which charges certain officials with "obtaining material benefits" worth at least $18,7 million for these companies.
This accident sparked massive protests in the country due to concerns that the accident was caused by negligence and corruption.
Controversy over bridge construction
"There is much that is controversial with both the demolition of the Old Sava Bridge and the construction of the new bridge."
This is the opinion of Rastko Naumov, a lawyer and activist with the association "Belgrade Remains", which organized a series of actions and protests against the decision to demolish the Old Sava Bridge and build a new one in its place.
Naumov claims that much information about this project is being hidden. Namely, in January, he requested from the Belgrade Directorate for Building Land and Construction, which is working on the preparation and implementation of the bridge construction project, the contracts concluded for the demolition of the old bridge, as well as the contracts for the construction of the new one.
"Odbili su da dostave ugovore, rekli su da su tajni u cjelosti", kaže on.
Naumov provided Radio Free Europe with documentation showing that the Directorate rejected his request to submit the contract, stating that it was a "business secret", and that the contractor, PowerChina, stated that disclosing the data would expose the company to harm.
"PowerChina" and the Directorate did not respond to RFE/RL's inquiry about this document.
Some Belgrade citizens opposed the demolition of the Old Sava Bridge, among other things, because of its historical significance. It was built during the Nazi occupation of Belgrade and survived an attempt by the Nazis to destroy it while fleeing Belgrade in October 1944.
Naumov says he participated in months of protests against the demolition because he believes the authorities' approach to demolishing the bridge is questionable, and that it is a "symbol of the city and its history."
A document from the Directorate for Building Land and Construction of the City of Belgrade from May states that the use of the old bridge "presents a number of structural and safety risks and does not meet the existing and growing traffic needs of the city of Belgrade," and that the new bridge will have a larger capacity.
Naumov also believes that domestic companies are being engaged in this project in a non-transparent manner.
The Ministry of Construction and the Belgrade City Directorate did not respond to RFE/RL's questions about which companies from Serbia were engaged in the project and whether they won the job in a tender.
RFE/RL found through a search that the Belgrade company "Mostogradnja ing" stated on its website, as a reference, that it is part of the project to build a new bridge. The bridge is being built in a consortium with the company it owns - "Milenijum Tim".
The company "Mostogradnja ing" was founded in 2020 in Belgrade for the construction of bridges and tunnels, and its owner "Milenijum tim" is known for being engaged in a number of state projects in Serbia, including the construction of the EXPO exhibition space and the National Stadium, the residential and business complex "Beograd na vodi", but also a number of environmental projects in Serbia.
RFE/RL has not received a response from "Mostogradnja ing" regarding how it was engaged in the bridge construction project and whether it won the job through a public tender.
Interstate agreements
The construction of the bridge over the Sava River is just one in a series of large projects in Serbia that are being implemented outside the Public Procurement Law and procedures that ensure competition.
The Ministry of Construction stated on its website that this project is being implemented through direct contracting based on an intergovernmental agreement between the Governments of Serbia and China.
The Agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation in the Field of Infrastructure between Serbia and China was signed in 2009 with the aim of improving cooperation, especially in the field of infrastructure.
This agreement does not explicitly state that public procurement regulations in Serbia are repealed in the event of the engagement of Chinese companies, but the Serbian Constitution gives international agreements greater legal importance.
The Constitution of Serbia states that international treaties are part of the state's legal system and that the country's internal laws cannot be in conflict with international treaties.
Activist Rastko Naumov believes that international agreements are being abused in Serbia "in order to avoid all legal procedures and suspend the most important anti-corruption laws."
This is stated in this year's report by the European Commission (EC) for Serbia, which is a candidate for membership in the European Union (EU).
The Public Procurement Law in Serbia regulates the conditions under which companies can obtain work within state projects and procurements and ensures the competitiveness and transparency of these jobs.
The EC notes that international agreements invalidate public procurement laws that enable fair competition.
"This leads to risks of corruption and non-compliance with European standards," the report said.
Nemanja Nenadić, program director of the organization "Transparency Serbia", says that interstate agreements have been used intensively over the last decade and a half "as a shortcut for contracting jobs without competition."
"Also, if a contract is always concluded with the idea that companies from that other country will implement something in Serbia and that Serbia will take out loans to pay for it, and the reverse never happens, then it is not an agreement between equal parties," says Nenadić.
In 2021, Serbia took out a loan from the French bank "BNP PARIBAS" in the amount of almost 80 million euros to finance this project, which finances 85 percent of the project, and 15 percent from the Serbian budget.
This bank did not respond to RFE/RL whether among the bank's conditions for financing the project was that the contractors be selected through a tender.
Government representatives praise cooperation with China, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said in 2021 that loans from China enable infrastructure development in Serbia.
Serbia is part of China's state-run "Belt and Road" initiative with Central and Eastern European countries to reopen Western trade channels.
The backbone of economic cooperation between Serbia and China is made up of infrastructure projects within the "Belt and Road" Initiative, for which Serbia is borrowing from China.
Where is 'PowerChina' engaged in Serbia and the region?
The company "PowerChina" in Serbia is also engaged in the construction project of the EXPO exhibition, for which the government has passed a special law (lex specialis) and the Public Procurement Law does not apply to it.
This company is, among other things, among the partners in the project to build the metro system in Belgrade, the "Miloš Veliki" highway, as well as the bypass around Belgrade.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), PowerChina subsidiaries (PowerChina Resources) are participating in the construction of the Ivovik wind farm near Livno, a project that has been plagued by complaints from locals and disputes over land and concession rights.
"Power China Road Bridge Group" is also one of the partners in the construction of the Počitelj bridge in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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