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Hungarian-Serbian Joint Economic Commission meets in Budapest

Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said cooperation between the two countries had benefitted both in terms of ensuring energy supply.

The Hungarian-Serbian Joint Economic Commission met in Budapest on Tuesday.

At a press conference with Serbian Minister of Internal and Foreign Trade Tomislav Momirovic, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said cooperation between the two countries had benefitted both in terms of ensuring energy supply.

He noted that gas deliveries to Hungary via Serbia had reached 5.6bn cubic metres so far this year, while Hungary was storing 160m cubic metres of gas for Serbia.

He welcomed the establishment of a joint gas trading company that had become a big player in the region and said a Hungarian-Serbian-Slovenian electricity bourse would launch by year-end.

Minister Szijjártó said construction of a 310km crude pipeline from the border of Serbia to Hungary's Danube Refinery would cost around half a billion euros. He added that construction could start next year and finish in three to three-and-a-half years.

He said a decision had been taken on the site for an interconnector between the two countries' electricity grids to be completed by 2028.