Contact with new Zelezara management signed

SMEDEREVO - The contract with HPK Engineering BV as the new management of Zelezara Smederevo was signed in Smederevo on Saturday.

The contract was signed by Serbian Minister of Economy Zeljko Sertic, Executive Director Bojan Bojkovic on behalf of Zelezara steel mill and Dutch company HPK Engineering representative Peter Kamaras, and the signing ceremony was attended by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.

The management contract was closed for the duration of three years with the possibility of interruption in case an adequate partner for Zelezara purchase is found.

The ownership over Zelezara Smederevo was transferred back to the Republic of Serbia in January 2012 when the previous owner, U.S. Steel, decided to sell the steel mill for USD 1 after nine years of operation due to the mill's losses caused by the drop of the price of steel on the global market.

Zelezara Smederevo employs around 5,000 people and currently has an annual output of around 350,000 tons of steel, although its total annual production capacities add up to around 2.2 million tons of steel.