18 October 2018

National Council President discusses new investments, with emphasis on Smederevo Oil Refinery, with representatives of Russian companies and a company from Turkey

President of the National Council for Coordination of Cooperation with the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China Tomislav Nikolić met representatives of Ors Oil Gaz LLC and of the Ihlas Holding A. S. (Turkey) – Absalut Ecology – Epotos (Russia) consortium, to discuss new investments in general, and the Smederevo Oil Refinery in particular.

Photograph: FoNet

Representatives of the Russia-based Absalut Ecology and Epotos, and a representative of Turkish Ihlas Holding A. S., informed the Council President about their companies’ business operations, underlining the interest to support the Smederevo Oil Refinery project in their respective domains. Mr. Cemil Ceyhan Aral of Ihlas Holding A. S. told Mr. Nikolić that he would travel to Beijing these days to have talks with potential Chinese partners who had shown interest in executing the Smederevo Oil Refinery project.

Council President Nikolić brought to the attention of his collocutors the MoU signed recently between the National Council for Russia and China and China’s NDRC at the CEEC Summit in Sofia. “The Serbia-China Bilateral Cooperation Plan, based on the signed MoU, will be drawn up in the framework of the “Belt and Road” initiative, to include a partnering proposal for the Smederevo Oil Refinery. The recent MSC Bor-Zijin strategic partnership is a good example in the investment field, which can only bring benefits to Serbia. I would like the Smedrevo Oil Refinery to team up with a strategic partner similar to Zijin”, National Council President Nikolić underlined.