April 3 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government plans to sign a contract for the sale of insolvent tractor manufacturer Industrija Masina i Traktora (IMT) to Indian company Tafe for 66.8 million dinars ($697,000/565,000 euro), Serbian prime minister Ana Brnabic has said.
The contract will be signed in the coming three days and the acquisition of IMT will open the way for restarting the production of tractors in Serbia, Brnabic said in a statement on Monday.
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Tafe intends to produce tractors under the IMT brand, with 50% of their parts to be manufactured in Serbia, the vice president of the Indian company, Kamal Ahuja, said in a video file posted on the website of Serbian news agency Tanjug on Monday.
"A total of 5,000 tractors will be produced in Serbia the next five years," Ahuja said and added that Tafe is in talks with two or three non-Serbian firms for launching strategic partnership and will decide on the future investments in IMT when it signs contracts with some of them.
The Indian company is interested in exports to all countries of the former Yugoslavia, but also to Poland, Hungary and Romania, he noted.
The reason for the interest of Tafe in IMT is that the tractor production technologies of the two companies are similar as they both are licensees of US agricultural equipment manufacturer Massey Ferguson, Ahuja said.
"In fact, we acquired the brand and the intellectual rights, as we want to revive it based on the technology of Ferguson."
IMT was declared insolvent and ceased production in December 2015.
(1 euro = 118.134 dinars)