Senior Serbian engineer witnesses rapid construction of Chinese-built E-763 highway project

Milanko Radonjic, a 68-year-old Serbian electricity engineer, has impressed everyone on the construction site of the Chinese-built E-763 highway section, which links New Belgrade to Surcin, with his hard work and professional ethics.

Radonjic became an employee of the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) in 2018 and later received an offer of reemployment from the Chinese State-owned enterprise after his retirement because the E-763 highway was the fastest route connecting the Serbian people with the Adriatic Sea and the most convenient road for him to return to his hometown.

Radonjic graduated from the University of Novi Sad with a degree in electric power in 1981. Since then, he has taken a wide range of positions, ranging from maintenance worker to electric power designer and engineer, to a college teacher, and has witnessed the building of a large number of infrastructural facilities in Serbia.

There were no large-scale infrastructural projects in Serbia in the first several years following the end of its war with other states of the former Yugoslavia. It was not until ten years ago that the war-torn country gradually saw its economy recover.

The past decade has also witnessed the robust development of the Serbian economy and the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Radonjic is one of the most experienced electrical engineers in Serbia. During the construction of the Surcin-Obrenovac and the new Belgrade-Surcin segments of the E-763 highway, and has undertaken dozens of specific workloads, as well as the acceptance and handover procedures.

Radonjic still provided the Chinese construction team with utmost support when many Serbian people cast their doubts about the smooth completion of the Surcin-Obrenovac segment of the E-763 highway because of multiple issues.

At last, the Surcin-Obrenovac segment of the E-763 highway was successfully completed and opened to the public in December 2019. It became the first highway project to come into use ahead of the deadline in Serbia in the past three decades.

Radonjic volunteered to eat and live together with his Chinese colleagues at the construction site in 2022, when the building of the New Belgrade-Surcin segment of the E-763 highway entered a critical period.

Radonjic only stayed at home for one night, when his daughter flew back from Australia, so as to ensure the rapid building of the highway project.

During an interview, Radonjic said that his grandchildren have often told their friends that he has actually lived and worked in China because he rarely came home from the construction site.

Radonjic has taken pride in his role in the building of the E-763 highway, adding that he will drive a car with his two grandchildren to the Adriatic Sea, where they will catch fish once the highway project is completed.