Emerging Europe, intelligence and networking platform that translates the region to the world and the world to the region, has announced the names of the 120 companies, organisations and individuals who have been nominated for its 2019 awards. The City of Nis has been nominated for Emerging Europe Award in the category of City FDI Promotion Strategy of the Year. This category assessed strategy of city/municipal investment promotion departments or agencies (in this case City of Nis Office for Local Economic Development and Projects)  in 2018 evaluating their creativity, effectiveness and success. City of Nis will be competing for this prestigious award with the cities of Debrecen in Hungary, Galati in Romania, Klaipeda in Lithuania, and the cities of Krakow, Lodz, Poznań, Wroclaw and Sosnowiec in Poland. This is another confirmation that the team of professionals working on attracting foreign direct investments performs their work in the best possible way, with the strong support of city leadership, but also that this teamwork and dedicated work is recognized not only in Serbia, but in Europe as well.  The winners of the awards will be announced at a special ceremony to be held as part of the Emerging Europe Leaders’ Meeting and Awards, which takes place on June 27-28 in London at the headquarters of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

June 28

The visit of the Bavarian business delegation to Nis was organized by Bavaria’s state ministry for the economy and the German-Serbian Chamber of Commerce. The delegation was comprised of the representatives of 10 companies from different fields, together with the representatives of the Bavarian Ministry Mr. Martin Grossman and Ms. Ursula Heinzel, whose mission of the visit to Serbia was getting to know the potentials for Serbia’s cooperation with this German province, which was considered to be among the richest and most developed region of Europe. This was also the main topic of the discussion of the guests from Bavaria with the Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatović and Assistant Mayor Milos Milosevic, the Head of the City of Nis Office for Local Economic Development and Projects Milan Randjelovic, the director of the Nis Regional Chamber of Commerce Aleksandar Milicevic and the Head of the Association of Businessmen Naissus Dragan Milosevic who presented all the potentials and advantages of this part of our country. Mayor Bulatovic pointed out that, that due to the support of the Government and President Vucic, Nis was developing faster than all other parts of Serbia, and that the fact that Nis was industrial, technological, transport, scientific-educational, as well as the cultural and sports center of this part of our country made it attractive partner for cooperation. “Only the fact that direct flights from Nis  to seven different destinations in Germany provides unprecedented opportunities for increasing the volume of cooperation, both in the economy, as well as in tourism, culture, higher education and all other important segments of life,” Bulatovic said. The Head of the Bavarian delegation Mr. Martin Grossman said that he was impressed by what he saw and heard about Nis and its surroundings, where there were already several large German companies, and that this visit would certainly result in further linking and getting to know future partners because, as he said, the first step must always be getting to know potential partners and gaining confidence, which would, of course, lead to an increase in trade, economic, and any other cooperation between Bavaria and the South of Serbia.

June 26

The beginning of the International Exercise on Disaster Consequence Management Serbia 2019 was marked at the Serbian Russian Humanitarian Center in Nis.  The exercise is jointly organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia and the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Russian Federation, with the participation of about 700 representatives of rescue units from Serbia, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia, Hungary, Turkey, Cuba and the Russian-Armenian Humanitarian Center. In the next three days, they will demonstrate their training and equipment for disaster response and disaster consequence management in several locations in Nis and the surrounding area. The ceremony of the beginning of the exercise was attended by the Deputy Minister of Civil Defense and Emergency Situations of Russia Alexander Chuprian and State Secretary of the Serbian Ministry of Interior Milosav Milickovic who pointed out the importance of prevention, joint exercises and training, bearing in mind the changing weather conditions, climate change, and challenges we were facing which did not distinguish the state and administrative boundaries. Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic and his deputy Milos Bandjur, as well as a large number of high officials of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Emergency Situation Sector, the Gendarmerie, and the Mountain Rescue Service, the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations and specialized units from Serbia attended the opening ceremony. After the opening ceremony, the demonstration exercise of the members of the Emergency Situations Department of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia was shown, and the following days of the specialized team would demonstrate their skills and training at several locations in Nis and the surrounding area.

June 7

The 50^th anniversary of the Serbian-Norwegian Association was marked in Nis. The ceremony was attended by Ms. Marina Kostic, the Assistant Mayor, who welcomed the guests on the behalf of Nis City. The president of this association Zoran Petrovic spoke about the great friendship of two nations. The aim of the Serbian – Norwegian Association is to spread friendship between the two nations that dates back to World War II, when thousands of Serbs were in Nazi concentration camps in Norway, where they encountered enormous friendship and support from the Norwegian people. The association also engages in the presentation of Serbian culture, tradition and history in Norway, organizing contacts between Serbian and Norwegian families and mutual acceptance, organizing study visits of pupils and students in both directions, organizing business contacts between Serbian and Norwegian businessmen and contacts of Norwegian municipalities with municipalities in Serbia.

EXHIBITION AND LECTURE ON CONTEMPORARY DANISH ARCHITECTURE

May 17^th

With the great support of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Ministry of Culture, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark organized an exhibition and lecture on modern Danish architecture in cooperation with the City of Nis and the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the University of Nis. The exhibition’s authors are Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Association of Danish Architectural Firms and DANISH ™, a platform for the promotion of Danish architecture and urban planning. The exhibition presented examples of modern, sustainable architecture of well-known Danish companies. From socially sustainable projects aimed at creating interactions to environmentally sustainable emission reduction projects by converting energy from sun, water and wind to electricity. After the opening of the exhibition, students and all interested had the opportunity to hear the lecture by Jakob Matzen, a former member of the City of Copenhagen Urban Planning Team, who shared the experience in the area of ​​town planning in Denmark. Also, after the lecture, with the support of the Danish Ministry of Culture, the Embassy of the Kingdom of Denmark the Danish documentary film “Great Architecture on a Small Planet” produced by the Danish National Television and the production company The Thin Green Line, was screened also for the gathered public. This documentary deals with examples of Danish architecture and urban planning from Copenhagen to Buenos Aires, as well as today’s challenges, such as climate change and increasing urbanization.

May 09^th

At the invitation of the Mayor of Kosice, Mr. Jaroslav Polacek, the representatives of the City of Nis, participated in a joint meeting of partner twin cities organized in Kosice, from May 5-7.The occasion for this meeting was the celebration of the 650^th anniversary of the awarding of the coat of arms to the city of Kosice, thus making the city the oldest one with the official coat of arms in Europe. The meeting was also the part off the jubilee celebration of the Day of the City of Kosice. The cities of Nis and Kosice signed the Twinning Agreement in 2001. Kosice is the second largest city in Slovakia, the cultural and economic center of the eastern part of the state and the administrative center of the Kosice region. Kosice is known as the Slovak city with the largest old urban city core, and it the first European city to receive its coat of arms (1369). In 2013, the city was proclaimed the European Capital of Culture, and in 2019 it was the first city in Central and Eastern Europe to be declared the European capital of volunteering. In May, the City of Kosice will host the World Ice Hockey Championship. The City of Nis presented itself to the hosts together with the cities of Ostrava – Czech Republic, Abaújszántó, Miskolc and Budapest  – Hungary, Katowice,  Krosno and Rzeszów – Poland, Vysoké Tatry – Slovakia and Uzhgorod – Ukraine.  Marina Kostic, Assistant Mayor, Nikola Lecić, Chief Urban Planner and Stela Jovanovic, expert associate at the Office for Local Economic Development and Projects and Honorary Consul of the Republic of Slovakia in Serbia were the members of Nis City Delegation.This meeting was an opportunity to dicuss with the hosts the future cooperation between the chambers of commerce of two cities, the national theaters and two planning departments, with an open possibility for other forms of cooperation that twin towns can accomplish, considering the possibilities, but above all, friendship for nearly two decades.

April 2^nd

The Ambassador of Slovenia to Serbia, Mr. Iztok Jarc visited Nis and met with Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic at Nis City Hall on the occasion of which the two officials discussed economic, industrial and sports cooperation between the City of Nis and Slovenia. “Slovenia is the country whose trade with Serbia is on average growing by 10 percent every year with a total value of around one billion euros per year,” Ambassador Jarc said, adding that he was especially looking forward to introduction of direct flights between Ljubljana and Nis, which should start from July 1st this year. Slovenia’s investments in Serbia are quite large, so about 25 000 of our citizens are employed in Slovenian companies operating in our country. Mayor Bulatovic emphasized the importance of establishing an airline between Nis and the Slovenian capital, and expressed his belief that this traffic link could contribute to the arrival of a number of Slovenian tourists to these parts, as Belgrade and Novi Sad are visited by about 100,000 Slovenian tourists every year. This year Nis will host one the groups at the European women’s basketball championship, to which Slovenian team belongs, so a lot of tourists are expected. The meeting with the Mayor was followed by the meeting with the representatives of the business and tourist sector from Nis.

March 8^th

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic met with the Ambassador of the Arab Republic of Egypt in Belgrade Mr. Amr Aljowaily, with whom he discussed possibilities for improving cooperation, primarily in the field of tourism and improvement of the tourist offer of Nis. Ambassador Aljowaily and his associates presented to Mayor Bulatovic the experiences Egypt had in modern ways of presenting archaeological sites and possibilities for applying this knowledge in Nis, primarily at the site of Mediana, Fortress and other locations that were interesting to the tourists. Mayor Bulatovic informed the guests about the potentials of Nis in the field of tourism and said that Egypt was an example of how archaeological and historical treasure could be used for the development of tourism and that kind of experience could be useful to be applied in Nis which was one of the oldest cities in this part of Europe, with an impressive historical heritage. Bulatovic emphasized the significance and increasing investments of the state of Serbia in the Nis Airport Constantine the Great which, he said, was “a gate through which an increasing number of foreign tourists were coming to our city.” The talks also highlighted the willingness of Egyptian airline companies to establish routes between Nis and Hurghada, since, as it was jointly assessed, it was big and still unused opportunity to improve economic cooperation between two friendly countries and in particular the possibility for greater number of people from Serbia to visit Egypt, and also for people from the largest country of North Africa to come to Nis and get to know the city and this part of Europe. The official request has already been submitted to the authorities in Belgrade, and the approval of the Directorate for Civil Air Transport and the competent state authorities is expected.

March 8^th

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic met with the Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Serbia, Mr. Denis Keefe, who was on a two-day visit to Nis within the British PopUp Embassy Project organized for the first time in our city. The Mayor thanked the guest from Great Britain for what he said “a wonderful action that our young fellow citizens were involved in. He also took the opportunity to present to the Ambassador Keefe numerous projects that were being implemented in the city, from infrastructure facilities to science and technology systems, whose goal, as the Mayor said, was to create conditions for improving the quality of life and standards of our citizens. Ambassador Keefe conveyed to Mayor Bulatovic his satisfaction with what he saw and experienced during his stay in Nis and said that the possibilities for cooperation in all areas, culture, economy, education and science were great, and that in every sense the United Kingdom supported the reforms in Serbia on its way to the European Union.
“Nis and York in England have been linked since Emperor Constantine the Great, as Constantine had been born in Nis and crowned in York, and in modern times, every citizen of Great Britain can only be grateful to the citizens of Nis for friendship and alliance that dated back to the First World War, as evidenced by the burial ground where the British soldiers and nurse who died in this area were buried. Also the founder of the company Lipton Tea Sir Thomas Lipton was in Serbia in a philanthropic mission and visited Nis, where he was bestowed the title of the honorary citizen, as a recognition and gratitude for transporting medical personnel, medical supplies and humanitarian aid with his ships for the needs of Serbian hospitals during the First World War in 1915. The meeting between the Ambassador and the Mayor was joined by Ms. Lena Jovanovic, a third-grade student of the Grammar School Bora Stankovic from Nis who won the competition and became the Ambassador for a day.

March 7^th

Ambassador of Norway to Serbia Mr. Arne Sannes Bjornstad visited Nis and met with Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic, and the directors of the cultural Institutions in Nis on the development and promotion of, first of all, cooperation in the field of culture. Mayor Bulatovic presented to Ambassador Bjornstad the conceptual designs for the construction of a multifunctional cultural center. During the discussion between the Mayor and the Ambassador the willingness of both parties to deepen and expand already successful cooperation in many areas was highlighted and Ambassador Bjornstad stressed the readiness of the Norwegian Embassy, ​​and the Norwegian Government in general, to support all initiatives that are aimed at improving relations, both through support and assistance to theater and music ensembles, festivals, art galleries and museum and other cultural institutions to present  themselves to the Norwegian audience, but also willingness to participate in organizing the arrival and presentation of Norwegian cultural workers in Nis. Mayor Bulatovic once again expressed his gratitude to Norway for the generous support it has been providing for many years to our city through different programmes and projects. He also pointed out the fact that numerous Serbian Diaspora lived in Norway which presented another incentive for improving cooperation in all areas. Mayor Bulatovic added that Nis would initiate establishing direct flights from Nis Airport to some destination in Norway. The two officials also discussed the possibility of establishing closer cooperation between Nis and some city of the same size in Norway. The Ambassador proposed Bergen and suggested that City of Nis should convey its interests to that city in establishing closer cooperation.