Zvonko Bogdan Winery wins Investment of the Year Award - eKapija business portal presents 2012 Aurea

(Zvonko Bogdan and Verica Kalanovic)

Zvonko Bogdan Winery is the winner of the Investment of the Year Award – 2012 Aurea, which is traditionally granted every year by eKapija business portal. The newly opened winery at Palic Lake best meets predetermined criteria – innovation, social utility and financial potential. In addition to the main award, eKapija also presented two special awards – for the best innovation and for the best social utility. The company Strauss Adriatic won the Best Innovation Award for its investment in waste product utilization for heating at the plant in Simanovci, while the Best Social Utility Award went to Kladovo-based Delta for its waste oil recycling system project.

The main award was presented to the winner by Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Verica Kalanovic at the awards ceremony at Belgrade-based Aeroklub restaurant. In her address, Ms. Kalanovic pointed out that that event showed that success and concrete results were possible to achieve, even in difficult times, with hard work, committment and a strong desire for success.

- A proof of that are today’s award winners, the ones who merged know-how and production at their companies and realized that it was the only way to find their place in the market. They are domestic companies I count on to use the government incentives for knowledge and innovation in the future.

Zvonko Bogdan, our eminent artist, received the award on behalf of the winery, while Manager Zlatko Zivanic addressed the attendees.

(the award winners with eKapija's representatives)

- Zvonko Bogdan Winery has been present in the market for little more than a year and we are very glad to receive such an award already in the first year of our operations. After gold and silver medals that our wine won in San Francisco, Tokyo and Vienna, the Aurea Award is the first recognition given to the winery as a whole and a proof that the Serbian market indeed appreciates the quality of both product and the entire production process.

CEO of eKapija Zdravko Loncar said stressed that the idea behind the Aurea Award was to highlight and promote real values in investment and business terms, the values that led our countries toward developed and richer societies.

- These values and these projects show us the way to the sustainable and independent development of our country, and we should fight all together to create as good climate as possible to have even more such projects in the future. This year’s big winner is the investment in Zvonko Bogdan Winery, but it is my pleasure to mention that many valuable projects applied for this award, which indicates that investors are ready to embark upon such quality investments even at the times when the overall level of investment is at its minimum – said Zdravko Loncar, the CEO of eKapija.

This year’s strategic partner of eKapija on the Aurea project is the Swiss certification company SGS.

(Serbia Deputy PM Verica Kalanovic, finalists, jury members and eKapija's representatives)

- It is a great honor for me to participate in one such significant project for the Serbian economy. One of the slogans of the company SGS is ”Let’s be a part of the successful world”, and it could easily serve as a guideline for Aurea finalists. These projects met the requested criteria, achieving that with their indisputable quality. What I would like to stress is that in order to achieve success, either in Serbia or anywhere else in the world, it is necessary to cherish real values, adhere to ethical codes in professional relations, constantly strive to enhance the quality and act in line with standards and procedures – said Marinko Ukropina, director of SGS Beograd.

The winner of the main award 2012 Aurea was decided by a six-member jury, and one vote was also cast by the visitors of ekapija.com and aurea.rs.

Jury President Dejan Eric, director of the Institute of Economic Sciences, said that new-old values and integrity, as well as the fact that we all should put effort into improving our performance, represented the main message that the jury wanted to convey.

- Sometimes small results achieved on an individual level can be huge at the level of a society – Eric pointed out.

Aside from awarded investments, this year’s finalists for the Aurea Award were also the following five projects: Sigma – Water disinfection system, Boci Co- Device for destroying medical needles, Terra Panonica – Youth cultural center, Carbo Concept – PET blow molding machine, and Eko-mlek – Modern energy-efficient dairy.