On November 26th the closing conference of UNIDO Business Partnership Programme Serbia „Facilitating International Market Access for Manufacturing Suppliers in the Automotive Component Industry in Serbia“ which was launched in 2007 by this organization in cooperation with Serbian and Slovenian automotive clusters and with support of Slovenian and Serbian Ministries of economy, took place.
The opening speech was held by Mr. Mlađan Dinkić, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Regional Development of the Republic of Serbia who underlined within his speech that automotive industry with its 150.000 employees and EUR 900 milion turnover in 2008 is the most perspective industry in Serbia and confirmed the willingness of Serbian government to continue to support investments into this sector.
Mr. Igor Vijatov, director of Automotive Cluster Serbia and UNIDO National Expert for Automotive Ind., Mr. Anton Horžen, Head of the sector, Ministry of Economy, Republic of Slovenia and Mr. Grzegorz Donocik, Officer-in-Charge, Europe and NIS Programme, UNIDO also welcomed the participants of the conference.
Within the plenary presentations and roundtable discussions,international and Serbian experts exchanged views and ideas on following topics:
Within the plenary presentations and roundtable discussions,international and Serbian experts exchanged views and ideas on following topics:
* “The EU strategy on automotive industry: how to increase competitiveness, safety and improve environmental performances”
Mr. Andreas Veispak, EC - DG Enterprise and Industry, Automotive Unit
* Trends and challenges in automotive industry: What to do to be successful”
Prof. Dr. Swadhih Ghosh, until Dec 2006 GKN Driveline, Director / CLEPA Chairman Training WG
* “South Eastern Europe – just a low cost location?”
Mr. Igor Maroša, AT Kearney svetovanje d.o.o., Principal
* “View of OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to the Serbian automotive suppliers industry”
- Mr. Bartosz Sliwa, FIAT Group Purchasing, Project Leader Serbia
- Mr. Helge Zeuner, VW office for South Eastern Europe
* “The UNIDO programme: objectives, main achievements & lessons learned”
* “Best practice on productivity enhancement – case studies”
