Becej's cherished dream is about to come true - Spa town status in late April 2012

It seems that a dream of the citizens of Becej, cherished for almost a century, that their town becomes a real spa town is about to come true. The preconditions for this exist since 1904, when Karolj Sos drilled a geothermal well and built a bath. Analyses performed at that time confirmed that it was a healing water with iodine, also known as "yellow water," and the bath was later renamed into Iodine Spa. People in this town wanted to build a spa, but they lacked money.

The Becej Development Directorate hastily works on the finalization of the town planning documentation that the newly former joint venture VitalSpa, the local self-government and a foreign partner require in order to prepare a quality agreement on the joint investment in Becej's commercial spa as soon as possible.

- It is very important to define in advance as many elements to agree upon as possible to avoid misunderstandings and confusions in the process of implementation of the agreement and construction of a spa resort. We have already resolved most issues related to the Master Plan for the spatial entity of the future spa, which was adopted last year by the Town Hall, and we've also earmarked enough space for potential investor to build the spa without endangering the overall ambience of the spa complex – says Zvonimir Stankov, director of the Becej Development Directorate.

The Master Plan for the spatial entity of the future spa resort is now being amended and supplemented to adapt certain parts of the space intended for the spa resort to the specific requests of the investor - Hungary's Aquaprofit, which should build a EUR 30 million spa complex in Becej.

- We, town planners, and the Planning Commission are doing our best to meet all the requests of the future investor, but we particularly want to make sure that the future spa complex is not going to endanger the existing green and park areas or disable normal functioning of traffic and other municipal infrastructure, and we want to provide enough parking spaces not only for the visitors of the spa resort, but also for all citizens and tourists – says Stankov.

He underlines the importance of Serbia's EU candidate status for the Becej spa project:

- The EU candidate status will definitely encourage our foreign partner to start the implementation of the joint agreement and provide required funds as soon as possible. Let us remind that the municipality of Becej contributes a building land and the existing space required for the construction of a spa resort to the new joint venture. The Vojvodina Capital Investment Fund earlier provided RSD 44 million for a geothermal well, which has already been drilled. We are doing everything we can to make this project a complete success, and we expect the same from our partner.

Aside from working on the town planning documentation, the Becej Development Directorate is also actively trying to gain the status of a spa town. The most active participant in this process is Ljubomir Pavlovic, a member of the Managing Board of the Becej Development Directorate and an expert training coordinator at the Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS).

- Over the last three years we've been working on returning the status of a spa town to Becej, which lost it in the 1970s. We are now in the final phase, the well has been drilled using the funds approved by the Vojvodina government, and the first results of the water quality tests are excellent. The water temperature is 67 degrees Centigrade, and its quality has also been confirmed by institutes in Sokobanja and Belgrade, which are the two competent institutions for the determination of physical and chemical contents. The geothermal water from the new well has characteristics that are suitable for the treatment of post-traumatic and rheumatic conditions and skin diseases, psoriasis in particular. Once all analyses and tests are done, we will submit all documents to the Ministry of Economy. If all commissions finish their job until late March, I expect a proposal to grant the status of a spa town to Becej to be discussed at a session of the Serbian government in April - says Pavlovic.

People in the town on the Tisa river hope that Becej can become the sixth spa resort in Vojvodina in maximum two years if everything goes as planned.