At the sitting held on 26 March, the members of the Industry Committee discussed the Proposal of the Decision Granting Consent to the Republic of Serbia Energy Agency’s 2010 Financial Plan and Information on the state of the Serbian construction industry.

The sitting was attended by representatives of the Energy Agency’s Council, Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Employers’ Union, Union Independence, Independent Union of Construction Workers and Engineering Chamber.

The Republic of Serbia Energy Agency’s 2010 Financial Plan was presented to the Committee members by Ljubo Macic, Agency’s Council President, along with the Agency’s purview and current problems.

Following a discussion the Committee members accepted the Proposal of the Decision Granting Consent to the Republic of Serbia Energy Agency’s 2010 Financial Plan, by a majority of votes and forwarded it to the National Assembly to be adopted.

Discussing the Information on the state of the Serbian construction industry, the representative of the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning stated that the Ministry had insight into the measures proposed for the recovery of the construction industry provided by the SCC, and that the Government had authorised the Ministry to form a Task Group to come up with solutions to bring the construction industry out of the crisis. The Task Group has been formed, headed by Minister Oliver Dulic, and it met twice so far. She added that major insolvency of the companies was still a big problem in the construction industry.

Representatives of the SCC stated that the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning has been their only partner in the dialogue with the economic subjects aimed at resolving the construction industry’s problems. They elaborated the material and proposed recovery measures for the industrial branch, stressing that they have been the proposal of the businessmen affected by the crisis since the middle of 2008. The trends in 2009 drastically influenced investment in the country, a 20% drop in employment in infrastructural projects, and a drop that exceeded 30% in low building. The production of basic construction material experienced a 50% drop. They stated that the measures proposed by the competent ministry’s Task Group are slower than the drop in the construction industry, and that the economic subjects and unions see strikes and protests as their only way out. Pronounced insolvency and debts are the companies’ biggest problem these days. The measures aimed at ending the crisis among other things propose regulation of the market and introduction of contractors’ licenses, settlement of the state’s debt to these companies, payment of VAT based on work executed not invoiced and establishment of a guarantee fund which would prompt the export of construction services for Serbian companies.

Representatives of the representative unions, Employers’ Union and Engineering Chamber agreed with what was said and repeated the causes of the difficult situation in the construction industry, focusing on the dire position of the workers.

The Committee members who attended the sitting expressed displeasure at the low turnout of deputies to the Industry Committee’s sitting stressing that it was an indicator or the attitude toward the construction industry’s problems. During the discussion, they also pointed out the problems in the calculation of the workers’ daily pay and meal allowance, problems in the operations of the City Geodetic Institute, problem of license issuance in Belgrade, the Serbian Building Directorate’s business dealings and the issue of Corridor 7. Some of the deputies expressed doubt that the Task Group formed by the competent ministry would contribute to resolve the construction industry’s problems.

Summarising the results of the debate, Committee Chairman Milorad Buha proposed that the Committee members use the SCC’s material on the measures for overcoming the construction industry’s crisis to formulate parliamentary questions and thus exert pressure on the state institutions to implement active measures to resolve the construction industry’s problems. He also proposed that the Committee’s next sitting deal with the same problem and that those competent be invited to it in order to respond to these questions and jointly contribute to finding a solution.

For the remainder of the sitting, the Committee members discussed holding a sitting in Kostolac and visiting the economic subjects there in the middle of April this year, as well as possibly realising a visit to public enterprises whose indebtedness was guaranteed by the state, in May.