Cooperation between Zelezara Smederevo and China's Hebei Iron and Steel - Memorandum of Understanding to be signed November 26th

Zelezara Smederevo (Photo: zelsd.rs)

Zelezara Smederevo steelworks is going to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China's Hebei Iron and Steel (HBIS) on November 26th, Bojan Bojkovic, a member of the Supervisory Board of the steel plant in Smederevo and the Working Group on Strategic Partnership Negotiations, announced Sunday (22 November 2015).

He told the national broadcasting corporation RTS that the visit of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic to China would be a great thing for the steelworks in Smederevo.

- The prime minister is going to attend the MoU signing ceremony on November 26th - said Bojkovic.

He stressed that there would soon be a tender open to all.

- The aim of the Government of Serbia and Zelezara Smederevo is to employ everybody and enable the manufacture of both intermediate and final products - Bojkovic pointed out.

As he underlined, Zelezara Smederevo used to have 14,000 employees with the production a third as big as now.

- There has been a study which shows that it takes 5,000 employees for a blast furnace to operate. This means that the steel plant in Smederevo has no surplus manpower, and the Chinese partner has recognized that - Bojkovic stressed.

- We've had seven meetings so far. They are performing a thorough analysis. A lot of experts are coming. They have a number of experts for each segment. We expect the analysis to be finished by the year's end or early January 2016 - said the member of the Supervisory Board of Zelezara Smederevo.

Bojkovic noted that the completion of the analysis would be followed by few weeks of negotiations, adding that the tender was expected to catch the attention of Hebei Iron and Steel only.

- We expect everything to end by mid-2016 - Bojkovic concluded.