Nis, April 19, 2006 – Serbian Minister of Economy Predrag Bubalo visited Nis today where he opened a fashion fair which is being held in the organisation of the Association of Entrepreneurs and the Impuls textile cluster.


During talks with Nisava District Head Milan Lapcevic and representatives of the local self government of Nis, Bubalo said that this year the Serbian government has allocated €80 million to encourage the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which will create some 11,000 jobs.

He said that within the framework of the process of reviving the Serbian textile industry, 35 textile companies are planned to be auctioned off this year, while the tender for the Niteks textile factory from Nis, which has undergone restructuring, will be announced by the end of next week.

Bubalo said that the government is giving serious thought to reducing income tax from 14% to 10%. He added that a midterm investment programme worth $1 billion will be adopted at the government’s session tomorrow, for which funds have been secured from privatisation proceeds.

According to Bubalo, that will significantly contribute to increasing the GDP, and have a positive effect on overall economic development.

During his visit to Nis, Bubalo also visited the business incubator centre which is part of the Nis Machine Industry and the Sever working zone.

The Minister also visited Prokuplje today, where he visited the factory of cotton yarn Toplicanka, which used to be one of the best companies of the Toplica district and is now called Nova Toplicanka. He learned about new working conditions in the factory, since this bankrupt company was sold to a new owner for 40 million dinars.

Bubalo voiced satisfaction that this once successful factory has started working again. He stressed that the Serbian government will assist similar undertakings and that it will not make differentiate between private and socially-owned companies.

He said that in 2006, the government will offer12 billion dinars in loans through the Development Fund under favourable conditions to private firms for working assets.

Bubalo recalled that last year that sum was 6 billion dinars, noting that in order to boost production, the government wrote off debts to many companies, totaling €3.8 billion.

Director of Nova Toplicanka factory Milan Ljubojevic said that the production of cotton yarn will begin in the middle of May, by which time 13,600 spinning machines will have been installed in the new production plant and 170 new workers employed.

The old production plant will be repaired later on by installing another 24 spinning machines and hiring between 80 and 85 workers, the Director said.

Ljubojevic said that the monthly output will be 160 tonnes of cotton yarn. The complete investment is worth approximately €1 million.

Source: Government of Serbia