Mihajlovic: Serbia is a mining country, by halting Jadar project we missed an opportunity

Photo: Tanjug/Rade Prelic

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Mining and Energy Professor Dr. Zorana Mihajlovic says that Serbia is a mining country and that stopping the development will set it back.

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Appearing on the morning program of a domestic broadvcaster, she said that lithium, along with copper and gold, is a critical mineral raw material worldwide and that by halting the Jadar project, Serbia lost a chance to be among the first in Europe to have a complete production chain.

"We have annulled the decree on the spatial plan, the Jadar project has been practically stopped, but we must not allow mining to stop in Serbia, because we are a mining country. Everything else is untruth and ignorance and a problem for the future of Serbia. Lithium, copper and gold are critical mineral raw materials around the world, and Serbia is rich in those raw materials. It's completely incomprehensible to say that mining should be stopped our country, because it's not true that Serbia is only an agricultural country, and that there is no need to develop industry, mining. If we want to keep people here and create conditions for those who have left to return, we must not stop, because then that means going backwards, and then people will continue to leave Serbia," said Mihajlovic.

She added that the idea was to have a lithium mine, a battery factory and an electric vehicle factory, which would increase Serbia's GDP growth by another 15 billion euros.

"Mining is the future, if we do not develop it, we will be outsiders again. Serbia was among the first countries to start exploration, and it's wasn't a mistake of the governmen of the time to have issued permits, but in the end we will be the last in the exploitation of lithium. Other countries have already started exploitation, and we have given up on it. I regret that we did not receive the results of the study on environmental impact, then everyone who was against, for various reasons, would see that this is a new technology. It would be an underground mine, fully digitized, with the latest technologies, highly sophisticated equipment, with well paid jobs. There would be no evaporation of sulfuric acid, no frying of jadarite at a thousand degrees, no liquid waste, nothing that citizens have been scared with for months," she said.

(Telegraf Biznis)