Communist Party Xi Jinping visited Serbia in 2016, it was announced that the large, new port of Belgrade will be built in the central part of Beljarica. The proposed area of the future port is almost half of the wetland and should cover in its central part. The port was planned for the yearly transport of 3 to 5 million tons. Environmentalists protested stating that the partial urbanization and industrialization will fragment the wetland and that remaining small patches of marsh will not be able to sustain such an abundant wildlife. Petition for the preservation of Beljarica was organized in June 2017. By 2017 the proposal of the new port was temporarily retracted for additional revisions. In February 2020, the government announced construction of the new port. After protests by the ecologists and media, in March 2020, claiming it is acting upon the petitions from the environmentalists' groups, Ministry of Construction announced that the new port will not be built in Beljarica, as they "already dropped the idea". Instead, they will use one of the other three proposed locations, one of which is upstream from Beljarica, which is also considered a bad solution by the ecologists. Any accident in the port, or on the river (oil spills, etc.), will pollute Beljarica anyway. Institute for Nature Conversation stated they are in the process of drafting the protection study Foreland of Danube's Left Bank in Belgrade. The ministry claimed the construction of new port, still on the unknown location, will commence in June 2021, but in March 2021 it was announced that the plan for the port will be drafted in the next year. Beljarica was excluded as the potential location, but the area upstream remained an option. In November 2021 city announced that location upstream from Beljarica, and the present Pančevo Port, remain the two possible locations for the planned new port. Construction should start in the mid-2023, and will include Belgrade Gateway and Belgrade Dry Port facilities. Beljarica location is praised for the closeness to the international roads, but lacking everything else, like the complete absence of primary and access infrastructure, which makes it much bigger investment than Pančevo, estimated at €105 million. References Geography of Belgrade Banat Wetlands of Serbia Palilula, Belgrade