Serbian Railways and the Postal Company of Serbia (PTT Srbije) signed an agreement on Thursday on joint construction of telecommunication infrastructure on railway corridors about 2,000 km long, of which value is 24.3 million euros.
The agreement was signed by directors of PTT Srbije and Serbian Railways, Goran Ciric and Milovan Markovic, respectively.
The project of construction of optical cables should be finished in three years and the whole amount of required funds will be provided by PTT Srbije from its own sources.
According to Ciric, Serbian Railways will bring infrastructure and land to the project.
He said that profit from later lease of optical fibers would be shared fifty-fifty between the Postal Company and Serbian Railways.
As it was announced at a press conference, an interest in such lease is expected to be shown by numerous telecommunication operators, investors, as well as government institutions.
The first phase will include construction of telecommunication infrastructure on 444 km of railway tracks between Belgrade and Nis and Belgrade and Sid, as well as on the Belgrade railway hub. These works are worth about 5.3 million euros.
The second phase concerns construction of telecommunication infrastructure on 412 km of railway trackes between Stara Pazova and Subotica, Nis and Dimitrovgrad, and Nis and Presevo. These works are worth about 5 million euros.
The third phase concerns construction of telecommunication structure on other railway tracks in Serbia.
Serbian Minister of Telecommunications Jasna Matic said that the project was significant because two public companies had realized the importance of information technologies and, in this way, they would enhance the quality, improve the security and ensure greater competitiveness of the economy and higher quality of life.