Contracts signed with 17 companies that want to invest 127.3m EUR in Serbia

The Minister of Economy of Serbia, Mlađan Dinkić, signed the contracts today (July 15, 2009) on allotment of non-refundable funds with 17 companies, which will invest total of 127.3m EUR in Serbia.

The CEO of the Investment and Export Promotion Agency of Serbia (SIEPA), Vesna Perić, said that those companies would employ 2,402 people in 15 municipalities in Serbia.

She said that 9.1m EUR had been provided from the budget for that purpose, but she also said that that money, which was granted for employment of new people, would be returned to the budget within one or two years through payment of allowances, and she added that other countries in the region set aside much larger funds for that purpose.

Helmut Cajdner, the Vice President of German company "Leoni", which will invest 15m EUR in production of automobile cables in Prokuplje, said that 200 people would be employed by the end of the year, while total number of employees would reach 1,300.

The Minister of Economy, Mlađan Dinkić, said that company "Leoni" was supplying BMW with its products at the moment, and that it would also like to cooperate with "Fiat" in Serbia.

- That means that, as we expected, there will be many foreign investments in automobile industry in the following period, first of all, in production of car parts, and realization of several such projects in Serbia is already in progress - said Dinkić.

As Dinkić explained, local companies that have been granted stimulus funds are mainly oriented on food industry, while a company from Kraljevo is going to produce the first airplane in Serbia - a light sports airplane - by the end of the year. It will employ 54 workers for that purpose.

He said that the investments in automobile industry would be subsidized with larger amounts, so that, if the investor built the factory of car parts in south Serbia, the subvention would amount to 5,000 EUR per newly employed worker, the subvention for newly employed workers in Šumadija and central Serbia would amount to 4,000 EUR, while 3,000 EUR worth of subvention would be granted for newly employed workers in Vojvodina.

- The aim is that that industry be directed to the parts of Serbia that have available and cheaper manpower, so that the production can become more competitive - said Dinkić.

According to his words, the commencement of rehabilitation of Serbian economy is expected in the fourth quarter of this year, the next year should be the year of recovery, while year 2011 will be the year of economic development.

Dinkić said that over 600m EUR worth of solvency loans had been approved by the Government of Serbia and commercial banks in 4.5 months, and he invited entrepreneurs to take the loans in RSD because they were more favorable.