11.03.2021.

Minister Stefanović visits “Orao“ Company in Bijeljina

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Nebojša Stefanović, PhD, accompanied by Republika Srpska’s Minister of Economy and Entrepreneurship Vjekoslav Petričević, visited the production and overhaul company “Orao“ in Bijeljina today, thus ending his two-day visit to Republika Srpska.

According to Stefanović this is a strategic company that prolongs the lives of our Eagles by overhauling their engines and thus enables our Air Force to further modernize its fleet.

- The future is important to us. We want to talk about continuing our cooperation, about intensifying it even more and about providing new licences and not to worry about whether we would be able to find professionals and resources to repair our new aircraft – Minister Stefanović said.

According to Stefanović, today’s talks were very constructive and focused on finding ways to address all challenges, given the current Covid-19 pandemic, and their aim was to make sure that this company, which is equally important to the Republic of Serbia and Republika Srpska, continues to work successfully.

Minister Stefanović is very pleased with his two-day visit to Banja Luka and the conversations he had yesterday.

- After Dodik’s visit to Serbia and the harmonization of the most important strategic issues, President Vučić noted that the relations between Srbija and Republika Srpska have never been closer. This two-day visit is dedicated to important activities in the field of defence industry. They are important because they provide strategic opportunities for Serbia’s defence system, but also some strategic opportunities for Republika Srpska, like creating new jobs – Minister of Defence pointed out and added that he had good conversations with Dodik, Prime Minister Višković and Minister Lukač.

Minister Petričević thanked Minister Stefanović for his visit to the “Orao” company and pointed out that the meetings held in the past few months showed Republika Srpska and Serbia’s commitment to intensifying cooperation in the field of defence industry.

- We expect our cooperation to continue over the next month, when we will take a more concrete position regarding the realization of the ongoing and some future projects – Minister Petričević said.

Ministers Stefanović and Petričević met with Mladen Stojanović, the director of the “Orao” company and its management and visited the memorial room dedicated to the fallen fighters – the company’s workers.

The “Orao a.d.” company, Bijeljina, is the only company in the region, and probably in the world, overhauling turbojet engines for aircraft used by the Serbian Armed Forces. They overhaul Rolls Royce’s Viper 600 engine models for EAGLE (Orao) and G-4 aircraft, and to a lesser extent R13-300 and R25-300 engines for MiG-21 aircraft. In the previous period, they strove to take up overhauling RD-33 engines for MiG-29 aircraft, including the repairs and testing of this type of engines.

In the past period, excellent cooperation between SerbianMinistry of Defence and the "Orao" institute was established. Last month, a contract was signed in Belgrade for the overhaul of VIPER engines for EAGLE and Super Seagull G-4 aircraft, which will make an additional number of EAGLE and G-4 aircraft operational and ready for use by our Air Force. The value of the contract signed by the representatives of the Serbian Armed Forces Logistics Department (J-4), PE "Yugoimport-SDPR" and the "Orao" Overhaul Institute is 3.7 million euros and it is one of the most important individual contracts between the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces and the defence industry company from Republika Srpska.