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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Contract on "ART Gold Serbia" project signed

Belgrade, 5 November 2008

Serbian Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic, United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) Permanent Resident Representative Rini Reza and Italian Ambassador to Serbia Alessandro Merola today signed the contract regarding the "ART Gold Serbia" project, aimed at a more balanced regional development.

Dinkic specified that the Italian government will allocate €3 million for financing the first phase of the project to be implemented in the Macva and Kolubara districts.

The project is to enable municipalities to draft regional developmental plans and to set up regional development agencies, he said.

The Minister pointed out that the project will include 14 municipalities, out of which Krupanj and Mali Zvornik are considered the most underdeveloped ones, having an income 40% lower than average.

Dinkic said that only three of these municipalities, Valjevo, Sabac and Lajkovac have income levels comparable to the rest of the country. He added that the Macva and Kolubara districts will be considered one region in the future, which will enable their speedier networking with the European regions.

He also added that the Ministry completed the draft law on regional development, which will enter public discussion in the following 100 days.

According to Dinkic, the law should be adopted by spring next year and the most important novelty in the law will be Serbia’s classification in statistical regions according to the European statistical standards set by Eurostat.

This will facilitate economic cooperation with Europe, explained the Minister, adding that it is very important that Kolubara, Maceva and Zlatibor districts become one statistical region.

Dinkic said that this will make it easier to distribute the help arriving from abroad, because regions that are interlinked also support each other financially, which makes them better channels than central government.

In the future the key institution will be a regional development agency that will have to produce new systems, said the Minister.

He also confirmed that the Serbian government will examine a proposal tomorrow to reduce the salaries of the members of management boards of public companies, adding that salaries for board members should be reduced to the level of average salaries in Serbia, while board presidents could have slightly higher salaries.

Dinkic said that decisions about salary reduction should be made on a case by case basis, company performance should be taken into account as well as the fact that salaries vary in different companies.

If a restrictive budget is required next year and if the financial crisis makes economizing necessary, then it is logical that public companies will be the first to feel the effects, said Dinkic, adding that the salaries of certain public company directors are far larger than the salary of the country’s president.

Merola said that programmes for regional cooperation are important because this leads to an exchange of experiences, which are more valuable than state help.

Reza said that Serbia is the 17th country to be included in the ART Gold programme, adding that the programme for Serbia’s joint activities and partnerships with Italian districts will be based on information provided by the Maceva and Kolubara district authorities.