Is there new, big venture - construction of Industrial-technology park in Kragujevac - ahead ?

City of Kragujevac, called "the valley of famine" until recently, is now one of the most significant locations in Serbia on the map of foreign investors. Some of them, like "Mercator" and "Plaza", have already started with operations in that city, while "Fiat" announces large investments in "Zastava". According to the words of the officials of Kragujevac, the inflow of direct foreign investments has created the atmosphere that makes realization of some exceptionally important project - Industrial-technology park - possible.

- One of the significant initiators of quicker development of the City is construction of industrial-technology park, which will unite companies from different spheres of business under a single roof. Joint activities of such companies and research institutions, such as University of Kragujevac, will contribute to improvement of innovations and competitiveness, development of entrepreneurship, as well as to well-being of whole community - Dušan Puača, President of the Regional Chamber of Commerce of Kragujevac, explained for eKapija.

Puača points out that, for the sake of realization of that project, the team has already been formed of the representatives of the City, the University of Kragujevac and the REgional Chamber of Commerce of Kragujevac. The first conference will be organized next month and its theme will be the construction of Industrial-technology park.

The team, led by Prof. Dr Slavko Arsovski from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Kragujevac, have recently visited the Technology park in Ljubljana (www.tp-lj.si), the largest in Slovenia, in order to get familiar with the functioning of such system, Puača explains.

Technology park Ljubljana stimulates creation and development of the technology societies by providing suitable infrastructure and financial benefits for the companies, that is, by offering attractive prices for rental of office space. According to the words of Puača, the dominant group for IT technology in this Slovenian park includes IT experts from "ComTrade" and, together with the experts from the merged Slovenian company "Hermes SoftLab", there are nearly 2,400 of them.

- Technology park Ljubljana occupies 40 ha of land, it is being constantly developed and it consists of 16 buildings, the first 4 of which are in function (each of them at about 10,000 square meters). The initial investment amounted to about 8m EUR. The city authorities of Ljubljana were one of the most significant factors in the realization of this project because they provided land and infrastructure for construction of that park - Puača explains.

According to his words, the same model should be applied to construction of the technology park in Kragujevac, while the University of Kragujevac would work on finding new technologies. The task of the Chamber and the City would be to attract and establish good cooperation with future employers and “tenants” of the technology park.

- There is plenty of Slovenian companies that bought former public companies in Kragujevac. These and many other companies would optimize their costs and stimulate innovations in the future park, which would lead to the economic development of the City. Industrial-technology park would have complete infrastructure and technology equipment, in accordance with all European and world standards - says Puača.

Puača adds that the significant role in realization of the project for construction of Industrial-technology park in Kragujevac belongs to IPA funds of European Union, which could provide significant funds for its construction and equipping.

- Also, we have to find partners in some of the countries members of European Union in order to be able to join the chain of technology parks that exist in Western Europe for a long time. Slovenians are one of our most possible partners - Puača concludes.