Serbia: Government to launch procedure for closing Resavica coalmine

State Secretary at the Serbian Ministry of Economy Dragan Grgurovic said that the Government is planning to launch a procedure for closing the state-owned Resavica coalmine operator.
In 2016, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommended to Serbia to take action to end the drain on public resources by large utility companies and other state-owned enterprises, with the restructuring of several state-owned companies, including Resavica coalmine. Resavica operates nine underground coal mines in eastern Serbia and has around 4,000 emloyees.
Last year, Director of Resavica Marko Vukovic said that Chinese investors have expressed interest in the privatization of the coalmine. He said that Chinese investors already held talks with Serbian Government regarding the coalmine’s privatization and visited the mine itself. He added that the Government is also negotiating with a Czech bank regarding a 10 million euros commodity loan in order to increase the safety, the production volume and the profit of the coalmine.