Zastava Arms needs export license

Kragujevac-based gunmaker Zastava Arms has asked President Boris Tadic to help the plant get an export license. The company’s president, Dragan Ilic, told Beta that Zastava Arms would not be able to honor its contracts, including a USD 37mn export deal to an African nation, if its license problem was not resolved. Zastava Arms needs export license “Because of the license problem, the buyer has already suspended part of the contract, and if the problem is not resolved, we will certainly lose the job,” said Ilic. He said that an export contract with yet another African country had been blocked, which had been paid for in advance, but Zastava Arms will have to return the money if they do not get a license. According to the Arms and Military Equipment Trade Law, export licenses are issued by the Ministry for Economic and Regional Development, based on approval from the Defense, Interior and Foreign Ministries. Ilic said that the company had started an initiative to resolve the export license problem at the end of last year, but had not received an answer from the authorities. According to him, the fate of employees at Zastava Arms depended on solving the export license problem, as salaries and production in the factory were at risk. He said that the state would need to help Zastava Arms if the license problem was not resolved, as, at the moment, there were no contracts for either export or supplying the Serbian Army. “In that event, the defense industry problem needs to be strategically resolved, as some countries in the region have done, and that means the state needs to take on the risk and the workers need to be paid,” said Ilic.

Zastava Arms needs export license

“Because of the license problem, the buyer has already suspended part of the contract, and if the problem is not resolved, we will certainly lose the job,” said Ilić.

He said that an export contract with yet another African country had been blocked, which had been paid for in advance, but Zastava Arms will have to return the money if they do not get a license.

According to the Arms and Military Equipment Trade Law, export licenses are issued by the Ministry for Economic and Regional Development, based on approval from the Defense, Interior and Foreign Ministries.

Ilić said that the company had started an initiative to resolve the export license problem at the end of last year, but had not received an answer from the authorities.

According to him, the fate of employees at Zastava Arms depended on solving the export license problem, as salaries and production in the factory were at risk.

He said that the state would need to help Zastava Arms if the license problem was not resolved, as, at the moment, there were no contracts for either export or supplying the Serbian Army.

“In that event, the defense industry problem needs to be strategically resolved, as some countries in the region have done, and that means the state needs to take on the risk and the workers need to be paid,” said Ilić.