Serb town signs IT deal
INDJIJA, Serbia – Goran Jesic, a young mayor with a reputation for investment coups, will sign a deal this week with an Indian company to build an IT park here, yet another win for this tiny Serbian town already hailed as an «economic miracle.» Jesic is confident the project for the technology park will also boost the national economy, improve its war-tarnished image and help persuade young Serbians that they have a future in their own country. The preliminary contract with Embassy Group, a property developer based in Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley, was set to be signed today, Jesic told AFP. «It’s 200 hectares, the first stage is -25 million, without infrastructure and without the land,» said Jesic. «If everything is okay, from next year the same company wants to pay and build stage two, stage three and stage four… it’s (potentially worth) about -200-250 million,» added the 33-year-old. For the town to have struck a deal that could rake in tens of millions of euros in investment is no mean feat. Indjija is an otherwise featureless town on the Pannonian plain 42 kilometers north of Belgrade and 37 km south of Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city. «The results of this project (will be) the most important for our country,» which Jesic said had lost 300,000 of its most highly educated youths in the brain-drain that went with the bloody collapse of former Yugoslavia. «This is because the biggest companies in the world will probably come to Serbia – Microsoft, IBM and others – and the best people won’t leave our country.» The investment is part of the growing shift among global IT companies to «near-source» technology services closer to Western clients, rather than outsourcing them to India, where costs are rising, said Jesic. That it has been agreed between two places with similar names – India and Indjija – is no coincidence, for that was one of the reasons the country’s ambassador, Ajay Swarup, made a visit to the town soon after moving to Belgrade late last year. Ties have since grown between the tiny municipality of 53,000 inhabitants and the South Asian giant with a population of more than 1 billion. In spite of its modest size, Indjija has the most impressive economic record in Serbia, which only managed to attract a total of -300-400 million in foreign direct investment last year. Indjija alone has pulled in around -300 million worth of greenfield investments that have created at least 2,000 jobs during the past three years. The new IT park is expected create up to 2,500 new jobs for Indjija, according to the municipality. «May Indjija be the first step by India into our country,» Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic said at a joint press conference with India’s visiting junior foreign minister Anand Sharma this week. Indjija currently resembles a patchy construction site with heavy machinery laying down foundations for around 20 major buildings in its downtown area. On the edge of the town, almost 500 hectares is set aside for industrial zones where companies such as German chemicals giant Henkel have built factories. Along with its growing local reputation as an «economic miracle,» Indjija shot to prominence among European funk-rock fans in June when some 100,000 of them converged on it for a Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert. «It was a very good for us because. .. if the Red Hot Chilli Peppers come to play in Serbia, you are a normal country,» said Jesic. The credit for Indjija’s progress has mostly gone to Jesic, who first became mayor at the tender age of 26, before the overthrow of late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, and has since built his reputation on dynamic leadership. «When I was first elected in 2000, it was a very bad situation in the whole of Serbia. My idea was to do something else for citizens,» said the former leader of the student movement Otpor that opposed Milosevic. Another of his projects to have won recognition abroad is «System48» offering citizens and investors e-governance through a partnership with Microsoft. This, said Jesic, helps to overcome communist-era bureaucracy that still clogs Serbian administration and ensures rule of law by reducing endemic corruption. «Our administration now is the best,» he boasts. «You can finish licences and everything. .. in a couple of days in our municipality. For the same job, you need in Belgrade or Serbian regions one, one and a half years.» Such an attitude has won Jesic many admirers in Serbia, and he admits he has his sights set on the federal level, firstly by becoming an adviser to deputy premier Djelic starting today. «I want to change things, I want to stay and live in Serbia, I want my children to stay and live in Serbia, I want a democratic Serbia in the European Union,» he declared.
