Two Hungarian "Greenfild" investments in Serbia - "Trigranit" builds railway terminal, "Biotech Energy" invests 380m EUR in bioethanol

Tamasz Bako, Szandor Pap, Siniša Kuktin

On the list of foreign investors in Serbia, Hungary is the 6th, and the value of the investments it realized reaches almost 270m USD. Pointing out that Hungary has great interest to invest in energy sector, agriculture and infrastructure in Serbia, Szandor Pap, the Ambassador of Hungary to Serbia, reminded that two large "Greenfield" investments of Hungarian companies should be soon realized in Serbia.

According to the pre-agreement signed with Serbian Railways, "Trigranit" should build railway terminal and trade center worth 150 - 200m EUR, while Hungarian-American consortium "Biotech Energy" plans to have bioethanol factory worth 380m EUR built in Zrenjanin as a Greenfield investment.

But, according to the words of Szandor Pap, the Ambassador of Hungary to REpublic of Serbia, all possibilities in the domain of trade between these two countries have not been exploited yet. Only 1% of total Hungarian export in 2006 "went" to Serbia, while only 0.2% of Hungarian imported goods came from Serbia, which is, as Pap pointed out, small amount when having in mind that Serbia and Hungary are two neighboring countries.

Reminding that Hungary became the largest exporter of capital of central and east Europe in the past few years, Szandor Pap pointed to the necessity of establishment of air routes between Budapest and Belgrade. Numerous multinational companies from Budapest, as the Ambassador, explained, most certainly plan to expand towards the south, whereas the non-existence of air transportation in that case can be impeding circumstance. The reasons for non-existence of direct air line, according to the Ambassador, should be searched in companies "Jat Airways" and "Milev", which could not came to the agreement.

- When we tried to solve this problem at the ministerial level, although, as we heard, "Jat" is owned by the State, we were told that the State could not influence the operations of company "Jat Airways". We honestly hope that that time will come, especially due to the fact that "Milev" changed the owner - Pap added.