August 7 (SeeNews) - Serbian company Rudex plans to launch a factory for industrial explosives in partnership with a Chinese investor, the mayor of Boljevac, Nebojsa Marjanovic, said.
"The name of the Chinese company building the state-of-the-art industrial explosives plant is a trade secret, just like the value of the investment. However, this Chinese company has factories around the world that employ hundreds of thousands of workers," Serbian daily Vecernje Novosti quoted Marjanovic as saying on Tuesday.
The factory will be constructed at the site of a former ammunition storage facility near Boljevac, in southern Serbia, Marjanovic said.
Copper mining and smelting company RTB Bor is the largest user of industrial explosives in Serbia. Vecenje Novosti noted that the company uses about 250 tonnes of explosives per year and its mines are located near Boljevac.
The director of Zijin Serbia said on Tuesday that the company will begin the reconstruction, expansion and capacity construction in Majdanpek and the smelting factory, as well as investments in the mines of Veliki Krivelj, Jama and Novo Cerovo.
Last year, Serbia picked China's Zijin Mining Group as a strategic partner in RTB Bor. Zijin agreed to keep all of the current 5,000 jobs at the company.