13.12.2017.

Improving cooperation with the Republic of Srpska in the field of defence industry

Continuing his today's visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin has visited the Peace Support Operations Training Center in Butmir and Special Purpose Engine Factory a.d. Pale.

Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin discussed with the managerial staff of the Pale Factory the possibility of cooperation with the Serbian defence industry.

- The Ministry of Defence and the Government of the Republic of Serbia are very much interested in ensuring that the defence industry of the Republic of Srpska is successful and can satisfy our needs. As early as on Friday the Special Purpose Engine Factory will sign a contract with the Ministry of Defence for the repair of ten tank engines in the total value of RSD 63 million so that we can say that they will have what to do and that they will be able to employ workers and that they will be able to begin to fill in their capacities. This is a significant job for us. It is very important that cooperation starts well and takes place well. This is good news both for Pale and for the Republic of Srpska and certainly an indication that we are very seriously interested in the capacities of the defence industry of the Republic of Srpska. Our Government, the President of the Republic of Serbia and the Supreme Commander of the Serbian Armed Forces, Aleksandar Vučić, have always taken special care of the Republic of Srpska, and one of our foreign policy priorities is the Republic of Srpska, the living standard here to be good, that the Serbian people in the Republic of Srpska and in Bosnia and Herzegovina are developing, that they work and therefore the entire region to be more peaceful, stable and more successful. We believe that economic development and economic cooperation with the Republic of Srpska are working for this purpose. When we have successful, busy people, we will have peace and stability, Minister Vulin said.

He added that it was discussed how to help the Republic of Srpska's defence industry.

- The defence industry in the Republic of Serbia is largely owned by the state. We are now passing a new law that will regulate the possibility of investing in the Serbian defence industry and there will be room for us to find legal and economic ways how we can invest in the defence industry of the Republic of Srpska and how we can enter everything that is needed for the Serbian Armed Forces in the market. But not only the Serbian Armed Forces. This is a marketing job and we have to find other ways and adopt other production programmes. Serbia's defence industry is doing well. We can say that we are able to satisfy the needs of our market and export a lot to the world market, but that is not the reason to stop, but on the contraty, to invest in the defence industry in order to meet some other times as technologically much more developed and safer, the Serbian Minister of Defence concluded.

Minister of Industry, Mining and Energy in the Government of the Republic of Srpska Petar Đokić expressed his gratitude to Minister Vulin that he visited the Republic of Srpska, following a visit to Banja Luka in September this year.

- Today, we discussed how, with the support of the Government of Serbia and the Republic of Serbia, that is the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, we will help and pave the future way for the Special Purpose Engine Factory. It will be in a scope of activities that they will get in a week or two already and this will allow operation for a few months. But we want to resolve this issue in the long run by entering the privatization process of the Special Purpose Engine Factory and we talked about this model. The process would be conducted by the Government of the Republic of Srpska in consultations with the Serbian Government and other competent institutions in Serbia at the political level that should decide on how to enter the capital here in the Republic of Srpska, the Special Purpose Engine Factory and some other that are ready to cooperate, Minister Đokić said, and once again repeated his gratitude to Minister Vulin for his enthusiasm to engage in searching for the best solutions that will be of interest both to the Republic of Srpska and the Republic of Serbia, and which will be of interest to the factories in the Republic of Srpska and all employees in the Special Purpose Engine Factory.

Previously, during the day, Minister Vulin talked with the Minister of Defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina Marina Pendeš. Minister Vulin said about these talks the following:

- Our military cooperation is good and, as before, we will cooperate especially in the field of military education. Currently, 27 officers of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina are educated at various levels of education in our schools. We will cooperate in the field of peacekeeping operations and pre-deployment training, and we certainly need to find ways to cooperate when it comes to the migrant crisis and everything that comes out of the migrant crisis and can endanger our countries.

Minister Vulin assessed that the goal of the Republic of Serbia is peace and stability in the region.

- We wish Bosnia and Herzegovina to be calm, stable, that decisions are made in accordance with the Dayton Agreement in consensus. So, we find every unanimous agreement between the two entities and three peoples in absolutely acceptable and we always support such things and such a policy. We respect Bosnia and Herzegovina, we respect its territorial integrity, its sovereignty. We love the Republic of Srpska and our great goal is that Bosnia and Herzegovina is stable and secure and that everyone who lives in it, including the Serbian people, of course, is respected, loved and successful.

The Minister of Defence of the Republic of Serbia emphasized that the Serbian Armed Forces has serious plans when it comes to armaments and modernization of our army.

- It is with satisfaction that I can say that the budget has increased significantly and that this year it will amount to 70 billion and 500 million dinars. Of this part, more than RSD 11 billion is envisaged for modernization and procurement of new weapon systems. We have the need to raise our army to the highest possible technological level and, accordingly, we are ready to cooperate with the neighbouring countries, but not only with the neigbourhood, but with everyone, from whom we can also buy new technology, but also to offer our products, concluded Minister Vulin, who will meet with officials of Republika Srpska, President Milorad Dodik and President of the Government Željko Cvijanović tomorrow in Banja Luka