Swedish Ambassador to Serbia Christer Asp has told Tanjug he met head of Simpo Dragomir Tomic in Vranje on Wednesday to discuss cooperation between that furniture manufacturer and IKEA.

Simpo and IKEA have been working together successfully for 30 years, and time has now come to open joint production facilities here in Serbia, he stated.

Asp remarked that he had thought it very important to visit Simpo and hear from Tomic in person about the programmes such a large Serbian company was working on.

The Swedish ambassador said he did not know the annual turnover, but that IKEA valued the fact that Simpo had been supplying 8 large IKEA stores in Russia for years.

IKEA has been a strategic partner to Simpo for years, and its high standards also served as an indicator of success and Simpo's way of moving closer to the world's highest standards of quality.

Today, IKEA is the 5th largest retail chain in terms of total turnover and the largest furniture retailer with 285 large outlets in 37 countries.