Serbia and GTZ signed contract on realization of regional program for establishing Danubian Competence Center

Serbia and five countries of the region will be working together to enrich the tourist offer on the Danube - it was announced today (February 17, 2010) on the occasion of signing of the contract for realization of the regional program for establishing the Danubian Competence Center.

The contract was signed by the Minister of Economy of Serbia, Mlađan Dinkić, on behalf of Serbia, and the CEO of German Organization for Technical Assistance (GTZ) in Serbia, Uwe Stumpf, on behalf of that organization.

Dinkić said that that project gathered six countries of the region - Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova, and added that the Government of Serbia was the first to sign the contract with GTZ.

Dinkić said that the Danube was the river route used by the biggest number of tourists in Europe and that only small number of them left the ships to see Serbia.

- International cruises in 2003 brought 17,000 tourists to Serbia, while that number in 2009 reached 109,000, which means that we started to use the potential, but that is only the beginning - said Dinkić.

According to Dinkić, 141 ships on the Danube docked in Serbia in 2003, while their number in 2009 amounted to 800, and most of them docked in Belgrade and Novi Sad, while significantly smaller number of boats docked in Donji Milanovac and Kostolac.

As he said, it is necessary to build more wharfs on the Danube because the only real marina is situated in Apatin and it is necessary that similar marinas be built in Sremski Karlovci and Donje Podunavlje.

- I am sure that we will create an attractive offer in association with other countries and attract tourists from Europe - said Dinkić.

The Ambassador of Germany to Serbia, Wolfram Mas, said that the Danubian Competence Center, which should unite the tourism potentials of six countries, would be officially formed on February 23rd when the statute would be adopted and the decisions on the first projects made.

Mas also said that the Center would represent the joint tourist offer of all six countries at the Tourism Fair in Belgrade, between February 24 and 28.

He said that Germany backed that program and that it had set aside 2m EUR for the first phase, while the amount of the funds for the second phase would depend on the project's development rate.