08.08.2020.
Companies of the Serbian Defence Industry Group (SDI): We are now being pushed out of foreign markets by domestic lobbyists and politicians
Letter from the companies of the SDI Group to the public and the Ministry of Defence
Due to the increasingly frequent attacks on the Serbian Defence Industry, the companies of the SDI Group sent a letter to the public and the Ministry of Defence, which we publish in full:
The SDI Group consists of factories that produce weapons and military equipment and operate mostly with state funding. We employ nearly 17,000 workers, and we cooperate with a large number of domestic subcontractors which employ at least another 20,000 people.
The average salaries in SDI are above the national average and it can be easily calculated how many families live on what we produce and sell. Our factories are mainly engaged in production, and sometimes in trade and marketing of their own products. About 40 to 45% of total exports are contracted directly, and in most cases, just like our colleagues around the world, registered traders find work on the world market and buy our products, which they then sell to their customers. On the domestic market, our factories sell products from their own product range to the armed forces and the police without intermediaries.
Regarding the continuous attacks on every contract we conclude, on every dinar that we earn honestly and in accordance with the law, we would like to tell the public that our colleagues in their countriesdo not suffer the same attacks that our industry and our production suffer here. Each of our products can be sold only when it is determined that it is not sold to any of the countriesthat are under UN sanctions. All other countries are markets and we fight for work anda place in the marketwith more powerful and richer countries than us. We are used to our products being pushed out of foreign markets by powerful and rich lobbyists, but it is a novelty for us that domestic lobbyists and politicians are excluding us from the market now. We are usually obstructed abroad, and now it happens in Serbia as well. We will respect every decision of our state, but we want to emphasize that there is the other side to every sale of weapons and that you cannot sell a single bullet to anyone without a reaction of an offended or frightened neighbour. If we are forbidden to do business with every country that does not have a strong enough lobby in our area, then the fate of us and our families is very uncertain.
