Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Serbia  on Wednesday afternoon on his four-country European tour ahead of the G20 meeting in Italy.

After a short visit to Greece on Thursday, he met with Serbia's top officials in the capital Belgrade as part of a packed schedule, to discuss expanding political and economic ties.

A busy day for Wang Yi started by meeting his Serbian counterpart, Nikola Selaković. The two ministers attended the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Chinese and the Serbian Foreign Ministries. 

The visit's highlight was the one-on-one meeting with the Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, covering numerous topics, including mutual support in the world political arena and booming economic collaboration.

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"We have an outstanding relation and a "steel friendship," Aleksandar Vucic said. 

"I'd like to thank Wang Yi and President Xi Jinping for their support of Serbia. What positively surprised me is the point he brought today: The necessity for our collaboration in the area of robotics and artificial intelligence. With China's help, Serbia can move ahead together with the most prosperous world nations.”

The economy was one of the most important topics of Thursday's talks in Belgrade. President Vučić announced that at this moment, China and Serbia jointly work on projects worth $8 billion. At the same time, minister Wang Yi praised relations between the two nations as more than just pragmatic.

"Serbia is for us a special place,”Wang Yi told a press conference. “Chinese have a special emotional link with Serbia. One billion 400 million Chinese know that in the western part of the Euro-Asian continent, we have a steel friendship, and that's with Serbia.”

"Chinese and Serbian people are heroic nations with backbone,”he said.

That "friendship of steel”was proven so far in numerous projects and in fighting the coronavirus epidemic. 

Analysts in Belgrade say Wang Yi's visit was very successful, both on the political and economic fronts. After the two-day stop in Serbia, Wang Yi continued his four-country European tour with a visit to Albania.