"There will be a lot of gold; I have a promise that the salary will go to 100.000"

"There will be a lot of gold; I have a promise that the salary will go to 100.000"

The launch of work of the mine was made official when the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, Director for Business Abroad of Zidjin, Jinyue Qiu and the Ambassador of China to Serbia, Chen Bo pressed the button. The ceremony is being held as part of the Mine Flotation complex. "Three years ago, a great friend of Serbia, Xi Jinping, had certain vision, and we are proud of our relations with China. It is not easy to always represent a small country that tries to be independent and sovereign, because you always have those whose interests will be interrupted. Regardless of that, together with our Chinese partners, we have always managed to overcome difficulties", said Vucic.

Two of the three largest exporters in Serbia come from China, he noted.

"In 2018, the average salary in RTB Bor was 68.000 dinars, today it is 98.200, and I have a promise from Zidjin that the salary will reach 100.000," he announced. The salary in Bor today is 647 euros, and it was 428 euros.

"Earnings in Bor increased by 55% in just a few years, and will continue to grow. Zidjin contributed the most to that," Vucic said. He also reminded that a square meter in that area used to cost around 300 euros on average, and today around 480 euros.

He also spoke about something that has been said many times - that, with the opening of this mine, Serbia, which is now the fifth copper producer in Europe, will position itself in second place.

"The fact that copper is now sold for over $ 10.000 per ton speaks volumes about that," he emphasized. We will have a lot of gold here, he says.

"That means that the National Bank of Serbia will be able to increase its reserves, to buy it at the lowest prices," he states. President of Serbia said during the visit that the opening of that mine is extremely important for Bor and the entire eastern Serbia. "It looks magnificent, and it was done in such a short time, I did not dream...", said Vučić to the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China, Chen Bo. He pointed out that the work was completed in less than three years.

After the official opening of the Čukaru Peki mine, he visited the ore processing plants and noticed that these are more modern machines and that the plants work according to high environmental standards. He asked the employees what their equipment was in the mine, to which he received the answer that it was excellent and that everything was automated. "If we hadn't done this, what would have been?", president said.

He pointed out during the conversation with the management of the new mine that it is a Serbian mine and that he is glad that it is Zidjin, which is the first or second largest exporter in Serbia. "You can see how far behind we are in terms of modern technologies and the production of modern machines. It is as if we missed one whole industrial revolution, but now we have time to learn," Vucic told Chinese Ambassador Chen Bo.

He also talked to the workers, asked them how hard the job is, where they came from and found out that most of them live in Bor and Zajecar. As he said, we would not be saved now if we had not solved the issue of RTB Bor, which was taken over by Zidjin, and if a new mine had not been opened now.

"This is a huge thing for Bor and the whole of eastern Serbia," Vucic added, emphasizing that Zidjin will increase the number of employees in that mine. President visited the control room, from where the entire production starts and is monitored.

The new copper and gold mine near Bor, in which the company Zidjin invested 474 million dollars, will be the first green mine in Serbia, which means the use of modern technology during ore mining and the highest standards in the field of environmental protection. As the company Zidjin Mining told B92.net earlier, the projected production capacity of this mine is 3.3 million tons per year. Since this is the first sustainable mine, it means that it will use the latest technologies in mining, and that it will be mostly digitized. And what this mine will look like and how long it will last, see in a separate text.

The Čukaru Peka deposit in the upper zone is one of the richest deposits of copper and gold ore in the world. The planned production of copper and gold ore in the upper zone is 3.3 million tons per year, or 10.000 tons of processed concentrate per day.

The mine is expected to employ more than 1.200 workers.