14.11.2017.
Government of the Republic Will Continue Assisting Serbian Defence Industry
Minister of Defence Aleksandar Vulin visited today the economic organisation “Prva Iskra – Defence Production” in Barič. After a meeting with the management and representatives of union of that company, Minister Vulin visited rebuilt and reconstructed production plants of that economic organisation.
On that occasion, Minister Vulin pointed out that the “Prva Iskra” in Barič was one of the examples why Serbian defence industry is so important for the Government of the Republic of Serbia, why it is so important for the overall society and, of course, the Serbian Armed Forces.
-By investing in new production capacities in the value of a million and five hundred thousand euros, “Prva Iskra” Barič has ensured that its annual turnover will increase by entire two million euros per year and that it will be able to hire new employees as well. This year, Serbian defence industry and SDPR have already contracted new export amounting to 405 million, while the old and already agreed contracts are worth 687 US dollars. Serbian defence industry is an important segment of our economy, just like it is an important segment of the Serbian Armed Forces. Owing to such policy and owing to the policy pursued by the President Vučić when he was the President of the Government, and when he was the first to recognise the significance and importance of Serbian defence industry and allocated the state money for investments in Serbian defence industry, we can now say that we have a branch of our economy which becomes ever more significant and ever more important and which yields ever increasing resources. But it does not yield solely resources; it brings new technologies thus employing the most educated and the youngest, those that we certainly need the most – Minister Vulin stressed.
According to his words one of the priorities of the Serbian Armed Forces is to develop Serbian defence industry, since, due to its existence and its work, we can have defence systems, we can have weapons, we can have explosives and everything that we need in line with priorities and at the lowest prices possible, and in that way we are able to equip our armed forces with far less money than anyone else is able to do.
- The Government of the Republic will continue assisting Serbian defence industry, recognising its significance and its importance and it will never give up the ownership of Serbian defence industry. The law that we will pass will enable an investor to invest his money up to the level of 49 per cent, bring us a market and technology, but the control over Serbian defence industry will be exerted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia for the simple reason that this is a strategic branch and something that is immensely important both in terms of money and for the Serbian Armed Forces – Minister Vulin concluded.
After the visit, Director of “Prva Iskra” Stanoje Biočanin underlined that, after long time, the company had restored its primary use, which is to deal exclusively with the production of brisant explosives for the needs of the Serbian Armed Forces and the producers of industrial explosives.
- Owing to a transfer of technologies and the extra profit thus gained, the company invested all that profit in the restoration of capacities so that now the factory has got completely new capacities to the satisfaction of other defence industry factories, and 80 per cent of our capacities is oriented towards export – Director Biočanin emphasised and underscored that the company was socially responsible and oriented towards resolving the housing issues of its employees.
During today’s visit to the factory in Barič, Minister Vulin visited the Drier of brisant explosives, plant for explosives sifting, and plant for processing multicomponent mixtures of disassembled explosives.
