The Republic of Srpska and Austria are connected by numerous economic, institutional, cultural and human ties. The Representative Office of the Republic of Srpska in Austria is working specifically to strengthen these ties – from opening up space for exports and investments, to promoting tourism and health services, to connecting young people and cooperating with the Serbian diaspora.
What has been done so far, how important the Austrian market is for the economy of the Republic of Srpska and can Vienna be an even stronger platform for promoting Srpska in Europe, said the head of Srpska’s Representation in Vienna, Mladen Filipović.
– The Representation is there for everything, in addition to economic activities, support for our export-oriented companies, we are the place where people can come to get information, to seek help, and this happens regularly, and we simply have our portion of the Republic of Srpska in Austria – stated the head of the Representation, Mladen Filipović.
– I am glad that over 5,000 people pass through Representation premises annually within the Representation, our activities, events, seminars, meetings with businesspeople. Very importantly, not only the economy, our institutions, but also all good people who need to cooperate with the Republic of Srpska, can contact the Representation, and there are concrete results, we can group them into segments of the economy with our most important focus being on the Fit4Austria project, where we provide support to export-oriented companies, we conduct training and education in the Republic of Srpska with partners the Austrian Chamber of Commerce WIFI Institute, Austrian businesspeople, and in parallel we organize meetings in Austria. It turns out that 80% of our companies that visit, establish business cooperation. We will continue that, and these results are visible. There are a large number of our products available on the Austrian market – he added.
– We have already brought four investors from Austria, the fifth is coming, during autumn a plant should be launched near Banja Luka, where a company from Austria will have food industry production for export to Germany and Austria on the one hand, and on the other hand it is a traditional company that makes cosmetics, and that is a future step forward that they will make; they have decided to open a plant here, to employ people, and that is the result of the work of the Representation together with institutions, with the economy, with partners from Austria – said the Representation head.
Since December last year, there has been a Krajina House in Austria, which of our products do they stock?
– This is a joint success of the institutions of the Republic of Srpska, the Representative Office, our businesspeople, our businesspeople from Austria who are originally from the Republic of Srpska and who are great patriots. We opened the Herzeg and Krajina House in Vienna, which sells products ranging from wine, brandy, honey to cosmetics. We offer a platform for producers who do not yet have the production capacity to enter large systems, but we offer a platform where they have the opportunity to export to the European Union. One of these chains stocks over forty products from the Republic of Srpska throughout Austria – stated the Representation head.
Youth and diaspora, a very important topic; the project Connect Srpska has been launched to connect students from the Republic of Srpska with institutions and companies; can this project help young people in Austria to someday return to their homeland?
– That is the goal of the Connect Srpska project that we initiated by visiting our communities, supporting our Serbian Orthodox Church in Austria; we noticed that a large number of our young people, being the third and fourth generations growing up and living in Austria, have very strong patriotic feelings and a real need, they learn the Serbian language, the Cyrillic alphabet, they regularly visit both the Republic of Srpska and Serbia, they spend time together; there are also cultural and artistic societies that contribute significantly to this; it turns out that an increasing number of these young people are interested in achieving something concrete, or in returning, in opening a company. It turns out that our successful businesspeople will gladly come to their municipality, the city where they were born and raised, and make an investment there, and this is already happening more regularly now. These young people need to establish a connection with the Republic of Srpska. The Connect Srpska project offers internships to our young people, students, pupils; we have already had about a dozen young people, students from Austria, visit the Republic of Srpska; we organized a tour of some companies, contact with companies, and already starting in autumn some of them will embark on internships in the Republic of Srpska, and institutions, and this is something that we want to build further in the future. It turns out that a large number of families have historically invested, they have built a house, and the younger generations have more than that, they want to preserve what some of them have already achieved, built, they want to create a business, they want to return, they want to create that connection, and that is the best indicator of certain intensification in the future. Our diaspora is very important in that context, especially in the economic one, they are emotionally attached to this area and will be much more important in the future, because life in the West is not what it used to be, we need to return to our roots, and preserve what is, and that is the Republic of Srpska – stated the head of the Representation, Mladen Filipović.
– The Alliance of Serbs in Austria has created a media platform, an application, where our societies can post announcements for their events, and then the media can report with photos, information, and it is very important for our people to have media presentation – said the Representation head, Mladen Filipović.
Source and photo: RTRS
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