02.04.2012.
Minister visist Utva factory in Pancevo
Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac visited the company, "Utva" in Pancevo. The Assistant Minister for Material Resources Ilija Pilipovic, Deputy Chief of general Staff Major General VS Milan Bjelica, director of "Utve" Tomislav Bjelogrlic visited the production facilities of the factory.
On that occasion, Sutanovac said that the factory "Utva" had been devastated and without any future, in serious debt and owing salaries to its employees, but after the Defense Ministry started market analysis and analysis of the Serbian Army, "Utva" paid all arrear salaries to its employees, while increasing the number of employees from hundred and eighty to three hundred and thirty.- The factory has exported a large number of aircraft now produced for the Army of Serbia. We had a chance to see the latest product of "Utva" which cooperation with the SDPR and the Ministry of Defence is preparing to be one of the most vital products of our defense industry in the next decade, said Sutanovac.
From a completely devastated factory now we have a factory that this is the only plant in Southeastern Europe capable of fully producing aircrafts.
Lasta, as you know, is already completed and in use, and we expect Kobac to start its promotional flights early next year, minister noted and expressed satisfaction that Kobac and Lasta aircrafts would be the most complex technical products of our overall industry and the expectation for Kobac to be the most expensive product of the entire Serbian industry.- It is important to say that we are back on the world market with products that are sophisticated and are now having a serious upgrade in terms of time behind us. I want to congratulate all the employees, management, SDPR and the Military Technical Institute for investing such great energy in the factory at a time when no one believed the factory would survive, and now we can proudly say that the UTVA has a future, we expect customers and to continue the further export of arms and military equipment, said the defense minister.
- Let me remind you that last year alone and in the last three, we exported about 250 million dollars of weapons and military equipment with new products such as Kobac, which is a very complex weapon, we will have more capacity and we expect higher exports, said the minister of defense minister.
Director of "Utva" Tomislav Bjelogrlic thanked the minister for his understanding and help to overcome the difficult situation of a few years ago, when the factory UTVA was on the verge of bankruptcy.
In the meantime, we renewed human resources, and the hall of the technological possibilities, and even managed to produce planes that went to export. We are now in the process of producing aircrafts for our military, we have developed four types of weapons. But we can say that in the previous year UTVA has seen profit for the first time in along period and we were able to solve the problem of debts to the workers of the factory, said Bjelogrlic.Vojislav Devic, head of the Department of Aviation Technical Institute, presented blueprint for the new aircraft Kobac which was designed according to preliminary designs of Yugoimport-SDPR and this is a joint project of VTI, Utva and SDPR. The concept for Kobac was derived from the basic version Lasta with significant upgrade of performance, carrying ammunition and the integration of the new fighter-navigation system and a system for safely leaving the aircraft.
The aircraft was designed for advanced school-combat training and combat use in close air support and anti insurgent and anti terrorist acts.
President of the union of employees in the UTVA company especially thanked the Ministry of Defence and Minister Sutanovac because no one believed that employees in would even be able to make a plane and they made as many as 30 and will make them even more.
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
Responding to reporters' questions Sutanovac said that at this moment we have 600 million dollars worth of contracts that will be realized in the years ahead.
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It is important to say that we do not export only traditional products such as ammunition, but also more complex, such as Nora and Lasta, and we also export knowledge, because our knowledge is sold outside the country of Serbia.As for the price of Kobac Minister Sutanovac said it would be the most expensive product of our defense industry and it is hard to tell the exact price.
When asked which markets our military industry covers, Sutanovac said that our products are exported from Indonesia to Canada and most of countries are from the time of NAM (Non-Aligned Movement).
- At this point it seems a large part of the European Union and the United States, has a large demand for ammunition for infantry weapons, and I am glad to be back on this very serious and demanding market, said Minister of Defence.
