September 27 (SeeNews) - The Balkans unit of international broadcaster Al Jazeera will build an office building in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, the city authorities said.
Al Jazeera Balkans and Sarajevo's Centar municipality have signed a contract for the sale of land plots intended for construction of residential and office buildings in the future Sip business zone, the municipality said in a statement on Thursday.
"Our aim is to improve and develop this area to make it suitable for the work of 260 highly educated employees, in line with most up-to-date global technical and technologic conditions for the further development of this information company, and we are especially pleased with the planned construction of an innovation and technology park on the wider area," Al Jazeera officials were quoted as saying in the statement.
The municipality plans to develop an IT park in the Sip business zone, which covers an area of 82,700 square metres and is 9 km away from the Sarajevo airport.
Al Jazeera Balkan's current headquarters are also located in Sarajevo.
The Balkans-focused broadcaster went on air in November 2011, after Al Jazeera took over Sarajevo-based TV station NTV 99 at end-2010 and integrated it into its global network as a pan-regional news channel.
Al Jazeera Balkans covers the whole of former Yugoslavia and has offices in all of the region's capital cities.