New hardboard production plant in Simpo-Sik - Jobs for 522 workers

A hardboard production plant where 522 people would be working was reopened yesterday within the wood-processing company Simpo-Sik in Kursumlija.

Serbian Minister of Economy and Regional Development Nebojsa Ciric said that the Serbian government would in 2011 provide another €1.5 million to enable the employment of another 100 new workers by the year`s end. As he pointed out, Simpo-Sik will this year produce the goods worth over €20 million.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dacic, Deputy Prime Minister for Economy and Regional Development Verica Kalanovic and Deputy Prime Minister Jovan Krkobabic attended the opening of the hardboard production plant in Simpo-Sik in Kursumlija.

Dacic said on that occasion that the reopening of the plant in Kursumlija was a heroic act of its employees since it was done at the time of an economic crisis and pointed out that the Kursumlija region was of strategic importance for the whole of Serbia.

He stressed that Kursumlija was located outside the Ground Safety Zone, which was still exposed to the incursions of Albanian extremists.

Dacic expressed the hope that the workers would no longer have the need to show dissatisfaction the way they had done two years earlier when they had blocked the traffic.

Kalanovic said that the opening of that plant was a result of the struggle of the Serbian government for every man and every factory and recalled that that plant had been abandoned a year earlier, while its employees had been hopeless and with no salaries.

According to her words, this plant employs 522 workers, most of whom are young people.

She stressed that the government would continue to help the modernization of facilities in Kursumlija because that was extremely important for the revival of the region since Kursumlija was among the most underdeveloped municipalities in Serbia, with the unemployment rate of 28.6 percent.

Krkobabic said that the plan for the future included the opening of a new enriched hardboard production plant, the introduction of new technologies and the employment of new people.

Public company Srbijasume will continue to supply Simpo SIK with top-quality raw materials, he said.

Simpo ŠIK d.o.o. Kuršumlija

Vlada Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo unutrašnjih poslova Republike Srbije

Srbijašume d.o.o. Beograd