Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic will visit Slovakia on 5 and 6 November where he will meet with Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Miklos and Slovak Foreign Minister Mikulas Dzurinda.

Dinkic attended the signing of a contract in Bratislava yesterday  between the Serbian Privatisation Agency and Slovak Tatravagonka on the privatisation of Bratstvo.

This agreement binds Tatravagonka to invest at least €3 million in Bratstvo and launch production of rail cars that will be exported to Germany, Russia, Austria and other European countries, Dinkic outlined.

The Deputy Prime Minister expressed satisfaction with the fact that with the arrival of Tatravgonika the factory in Subotica will be saved and employees will have work.

He recalled that in early 2009, the workers went on strike, and the then majority owner ceded his shares to the state for free due to his conflict with the employees and inability to organise production.

In the middle of last year, after Bratstvo became majority owned by the state, the Serbian government managed to provide jobs to workers and regular payment of wages through the implementation of the programme of support to producers of rail vehicles in 2009, specified the Minister.

The state temporarily took over this factory in order to find an appropriate strategic partner, which Tatravagonka certainly is as it sells wagons to German, Russian and Austrian railways, the Minister stated and expressed confidence that in the future there will be a lot of work for workers in Subotica where wagons will be exported throughout Europe.

The tender for the sale of Bratstvo was announced in June this year, and only companies that had produced rail vehicles in the last five years and that had generated at least €15 million of income per year had the right to participate in the tender.

He confirmed that Tatravagonka offered €5.4 million and promised to take over responsibility for the entire Bratstvo workforce.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who is on a two-day working visit to Slovakia, met with Slovak Foreign Minister Mikulas Dzurinda today to discuss the promotion of economic cooperation between the two countries.

Slovakia has managed to attract the world's automotive giants such as Volkswagen, Hyundai, Kia, Peugeot, Citroën, as well as companies from the electronics industry such as IBM, Samsung, Panasonic and we want to apply the same model of economic growth and to use Slovak precious experience, maintained the Deputy Prime Minister.

Dinkic opened a business forum in Bratislava "Serbia – the right place to invest", where he presented the benefits of investment in our country, added the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development in a statement.