Contractors have finished laying track on the remaining Serbian section of the new, China-backed north-south railway between the Serbian capital, Belgrade, and Budapest, capital of Hungary.

Costing $1bn, the 108km section between the Serbian cities of Novi Sad and Subotica should be running by the end of this year, according to a press release from China Railways published in Global Times.

The final length of the Novi Sad rail was laid last Thursday, and on the same day, dynamic track tests showed that its trains will be able to achieve a top speed of 200km/h.

The southerly section between Novi Sad and Belgrade was finished in March 2022.

China Railways said that section has so far allowed more than 7 million passenger journeys between Serbia’s two biggest cities.

Completing the line from Novi Sad north to the border town of Subotica will mean the Serbian section is complete.

Work on the Hungarian section started in November 2021.

Last October, Hungary’s foreign affairs and trade minister Péter Szijjártó said the Hungarian section should be ready by 2025.

Global Times described the $2.9bn, double-track electrified line between Budapest and Belgrade as “a benchmark infrastructure project under the Belt and Road Initiative”.