No deal between Ikarbus and Breda Menarinibus

- The representatives of the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development confirmed yesterday (February 1, 2010) to the management and workers of Ikarbus that the negotiations with Italian company Breda Menarinibus on cooperation in bus production had failed - Danas learned from the source in Ikarbus.

That means that Ikarbus will not be producing buses for Breda and that it will have to find some other solution to resume production. According to Danas, just like Zastava and IMT, Ikarbus will enter the program of exchange of old vehicles for new ones. In that way, the bus owners will be able to exchange their old buses for new Ikarbus buses with the favorable loan.

As Danas learns, the biggest obstacle in the negotiations was the insisting by Serbian authorities that there should be no mediators in the deal between Breda and Ikarbus (which existed in earlier business arrangements between the two companies), and that was not accepted by the other side. Also, Italians insisted on import of all parts from their country, while Serbian side wanted certain parts to be purchased in Serbia. According to the initial plan, Breda was supposed to rent the units of Ikarbus on two years and produce up to 300 buses per year. In order to meet the demands of the Italian side, Ikarbus has recently laid off 380 employees and, thus, cut the number of workers to 300.

Ikarbus a.d. Zemun

Ministarstvo privrede Republike Srbije

Zastava automobili a.d. Kragujevac

IMT d.o.o. Beograd

Breda menarinibus