Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic will be in Slovakia on 5 and 6 November where he will meet with Slovakian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Ivan Miklos and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikulas Dzurinda.

The Ministry says in a statement that tomorrow in Bratislava Dinkic will open a business forum “Serbia – the Right Place to Invest”, at which he will present the advantages of investing in Serbia.

On the same day, representatives from the Serbian Privatisation Agency and Slovakia’s Tatravagonka will sign an agreement on the privatisation of Subotica-based Bratstvo, a company engaged in the design, production and repair of railway vehicles.

In 2009 this company discontinued all operations, its workers went on strike and the then majority owner conceded his shares to the state.

Around mid-2009, the government secured work and salaries for the Bratstvo employees through a programme of support to railway vehicle producers.

The tender for the sale of Bratstvo was carried out in June 2010. Slovakia’s Tatravagonka won the tender with an offered price of €5.4 million; it also accepted all obligations of the social welfare programme and took over responsibility for all previous employees of the Bratstvo Company.

Tatravagonka is one of the major European companies for the production and repair of railway vehicles. It employs around 2,000 workers and in 2008 it made a profit of around €280 million in the markets of Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, the statement adds.