The Italian company, Siad IstraBenz has officially opened a technical gas filling and production plant near the village of Šimanovci in Vojvodina, worth EUR 16 million.
The company plans to invest an additional EUR 4 million in the plant over the next four years. The plant enables cylinders to be filled directly in Serbia, instead of in Slovenia as has been the case until now. It also creates the opportunity of exporting gas for medical, industrial and local purposes.
With this latest investment, Italy has become Serbia’s second-largest foreign trade partner, with 1,600 Italian companies in Serbia employing 50,000 workers and accounting for 5.5% of the Serbian gross domestic product.
At the opening ceremony, Carlo Lo Cascio, Italian ambassador to Serbia, said that Serbia, like Italy, has been making rapid progress this year, particularly in the innovative technology sector.
“In the first seven months of this year, the trade between the two countries increased by 27%. Competition in the world is growing stronger, while the world has to adjust to the new normal. Next month, we are going to have a meeting of businesspeople set up by the Italian Embassy,” the Ambassador added.
The IstraBenz plant was built in record time and the Italian investors are still waiting for inspectors to grant it a technical permit which the Serbian Minister of Trade, Tatjana Matić, says should happen soon.
(RTS, 23.09.2021)
This post is also available in: Italiano