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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Government resolved to fully repair all flooded areas in Vojvodina

Belgrade, 5 May 2005

Serbian Minister of Economy Predrag Bubalo said today that the Serbian government is resolved to fully repair all of the flooded municipalities of Banat, Vojvodina.

Serbian Minister of Capital Investment Velimir Ilic, who also heads of the Serbian government's crisis response centre for floods in central Banat, said that the government has so far set aside 19 million dinars in assistance to the Banat municipalities from the Natural Disasters Fund, bringing the total amount of assistance raised to 156.5 million dinars, with additional donations coming from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, 45 million dinars; the Ministry of Capital Investment, 40 million dinars; the Vojvodina Executive Council, 16 million dinars; individual public donors, 6.5 million dinars; the Civil Protection, 10 million dinars; and the Commodity Reserves has assisted with 20 million dinars in food aid.

Ilic explained that these funds have been used in four Banat municipalities, including the Zrenjanin municipality in which the tragic traffic accident on the bridge at Zabalj took place.

He said that all citizens of the flood-stricken municipalities received one-off aid worth 10,000 dinars, regardless of whether their houses have been flooded or not, since all citizens took part in the protection from floods and building of dikes.

Ilic said that the damage will be assessed by commissions that will be formed shortly. He added that local authorities requested that pupils of the eighth grade of elementary schools in the area be freed from the obligation of taking placement tests for secondary schools. The Serbian Ministry of Education has accepted this in principle.

The Minister of Capital Investment said that the Serbian government decided at its session today to set aside €72 million for the completion of the Belgrade-Novi Sad road and construction of a bridge on the Danube near Beska.

The Serbian Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management Ivana Dulic-Markovic said that the Serbian government and proper ministries are doing their level best to mitigate the very difficult situation in the Banat municipalities hit by floods.

She said that the Serbian government adopted an Information on sanitisation and other veterinary measures in central Banat, and the Ministry of Agriculture has set aside 15 million dinars for sanitary and veterinary measures and 30 million dinars for support to experts working on repairing the damage.

Serbian Finance Minister Mladjan Dinkic said that the €72 million that will be set aside for the completion of the Belgrade-Novi Sad motorway comes from a loan of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and he explained that of that sum, €18 million will be spent on the road and €53 million will be used to build a bridge near Beska.

Also, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a €25 million loan for the construction and modernisation of Serbian primary and secondary schools. The implementation of this project, according to Dinkic, will begin this year and will be completed by the end of 2007.

Dinkic announced that the EIB and the Air Traffic Control Agency will sign an agreement on a €34 million loan with the aim of modernising the country’s air traffic control ahead of an expected upsurge in air traffic in the coming years.

Also, the government adopted a report on talks with the World Bank on a project to upgrade Serbia’s irrigation and drainage system, worth $25 million, said Dinkic and added that the government also passed a decree which marks the beginning of the rationalisation of state administration.

According to him, the government also decided to ask for an extension until the end of the year of the ongoing three-year financial arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He said that talks with IMF representatives will begin tomorrow and that the government will file an official request to extend the arrangement, which expires on May 15.

He expressed the hope that the negotiations will be successful and that the fifth review under the stand-by arrangement will be favourable.