Dragoslav Sumarac

Belgrade, July 26 - The Serb Ministry of Urban Planning and Civil Engineering said in its statement for Thursday's press conference that in the course of his three-day visit to Greece of the Serb Minister of Urban Planning and Civil Engineering, Dragoslav Sumarac, numerous projects were agreed upon and business deals struck, whereas the Greek partners emphasized the need for hiring our engineers and builders for the construction of the infrastructure for the Olympics.

"The Greek authorities expressed their interest in obtaining concessions for the construction of the Leskovac-Macedonian border motorway and the road section Novi Sad-Subotica, as flocks of tourists stream down these roads heading for Athens," Sumarac said, adding that the Greek partners expressed their urgent need for the hiring of 30 and 120 builders for the construction of a bridge and a tunnel respectively.

As Sumarac finds it, the agreement between the Serb Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and the German delegation on providing work permits for 2,600 Serb workers, out of which number 1,000 are builder work permits, supplied the necessary guarantee for the Greek authorities to allow Serb builders to feature on the Greek labour market.

So far Serb workers have been coming up against tremendous obstacles to obtaining Greek work permits due to the pressure exerted by trade unions on the Greek authorities to forbid the importation of cheap labour force.

"We are expecting a Greek delegation to arrive in Yugoslavia around August 5, when the first branch offices should be opened. Furthermore, interest has been shown in the purchase of some of our firms," Sumarac said.

The Greek parliament is also expected to pass a bill on the development of the Balkans in September, which will accelerate the inflow of the financial support pledged by the Greek government.

The Assistant Minister, Tihomir Obradovic, announced the arrival of the HABITAT (UN Centre for Human Settlements) delegation on Monday. The purpose of their visit to Yugoslavia is to design four housing projects in Serbia.

These projects are to be carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Urban Planning and Civil Engineering, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Trade Relations and the Commissariat for Refugees of the Republic of Serbia. The programme of permanent refugee integration on the territory of Serbia will also be incorporated in the projects.