April 1^st

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic and the presidents of the Nis City Municipalities Crveni Krst and Pantelej Miroslav Milutinovic and Bratimir Vasiljevic visited the construction works on the secondary water supply network in the village of Hum, whose completion would solve problems, not just for the residents of this village, but for the residents of the village of Brenica. Mayor Bulatovic said that works began a month before that and that they would be completed by June. The works include the construction of pushing pipeline in the length of 2300 m and the construction of the secondary network in the length of 5 km. Also the pump station is being constructed which necessary for later is bringing water to the village of Rujnik which will enable the smooth supply of drinking water to the villages of Hum and Brenica. Mayor Bulatovic added that in the future the whole network would be designed for upper part of the village of Huma so that these works could start this year. The value of construction works is 41 million dinars.

On the occasion of March 24^th, the day when the NATO bombing started in 1999, the memorial service was held and the flower wreaths were laid for the victims of the aggression. The memorial service was held by Nis Eparchy priests. On the behalf of the City of Nis the wreaths were laid by the President of the Nis City Assembly Mr. Rade Rajkovic and Deputy Mayor Prof. Dr. Milos Bandjur.

In the memory of the victims of NATO bombing two monuments were erected. The memorial chapel in the park between the Fortress and the University building was built by the city government, while the monument across the street was built the Yugoslav Army.
During the three months of bombing, air-raid sirens sounded in Nis for 129 times. The city was under the air strikes for 52 days, 5 hours and 14 minutes.  56 citizens of Nis were killed, more than 200 were injured, 120 houses were demolished and more than 3 000 buildings damaged.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic attended in Niska Banja signing of the contract between the RS Ministry of Economy and the Company Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. (IMI), for the construction of the factory in Nis. The contract on grants, which would facilitate the opening of the factory that would employ 1,250 workers, was signed by Minister of Economy of the Republic of Serbia Mr. Goran Knezevic and IMI CEO Mr. Gilles Bernard.

PM Aleksandar Vucic said, in a speech after signing, that Nis was becoming the center of Southeast Europe and that he was proud of it, adding that republic of Serbia Government largely contributed to that fact. He said to IMI representatives that he was looking forward to 1,250 employees.

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatović thanked the Prime Minister for the efforts that Government made to make Nis again the economic center of this part of Serbia and expressed his belief that this was a step toward a better life for the citizens of this part of Serbia.

“We do not bring just the money. We bring new technology and new values. We have long-term plans. We plan to employ more than 1,200 people who will be the part of a community which has 17,000 workers” as the CEO of Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. said at the signing ceremony.

After the completion of the competition and nine-month training, with the consent of the Government of Serbia, 86 train drivers were hired. There are 3 women among those 86 newly hired locomotive operators and 10 out of 86 are from Nis. They will be employed by the company “Kargo Srbija”, developed in the context of the reform of the railway sector, which was in charge of repairing the diesel locomotives at the locomotive depot in Nis. The RS Vice-president Mrs. Zorana Mihajlovic said that additional 40 train drivers would be employed the following year and that there would be vacancies at Railway Serbia for other professions as well.

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic and Rs Minister of Youth and Sports Vanja Udovicic attended the ceremony on the occasion University of Nis Students’ Day. Their message to the students on this day was to continue to learn and achieve good results because the young were the most valuable segment of society and the only guarantee of good future.

Since 2014, the Fund for Young Talents of the Republic of Serbia has awarded 8601 to the high school pupils and students to study at home and abroad. More than 20 different agreements have been signed with companies and institutions in the country, and 950 scholars have participated in training programs and workshops organized by the Fund. In the last two years the number of scholarship for studies in Serbia was increased from 1 000 to 1 250, as well as the amount of scholarships.

On the occasion of Forest Day, and in order to address the situation and the importance of the protection of forests of oaks, which once dominated this region, the Serbian Institute for Nature Conservation in cooperation with the City of Nis and PUC Medijana, organized the promotion of the book on the protection of oaks. After the promotion of the book, in the immediate park area in front of the City Hall, Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatović and Mr. Aleksandar Dragisic, the director of the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia, planted the oak tree with the message about the importance of preserving our authentic tree species and each tree to ensure healthy living conditions and living standards of the population. Trees and forests enable reduction of energy costs, by lowering the temperature of 2 to 8 degrees, and thus reducing the need for air conditioning cooling equipment using up to 30%, if the planted strategically in urban areas.

The digital info screen announcing the arrival of the city public transport bus routes was set up at the main bus stop on the Square of King Milan. Soon all the frequent bus stops in the city will get these devices that facilitate the use of city bus routes and accurately inform citizens about the movement of the particular bus. Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovic talked to the citizens after the screen had been installed to check out their opinions if there were the positive effects.

The works on the construction of the roundabout in Dusanova Street, which began on February 23rd, would be finalized ten days before the deadline for completion. The value of the works on the roundabout is about 9 million dinars, while the value of the entire contract for the reconstruction of Dusanova Street and the construction of roundabout is 23 million. The Contractor is the Company TRACE Nis. According to the Mayor of Nis Darko Bulatovic, who visited the works, the efforts were made to complete the works as fast as possible so that this street intersection was available for traffic. He pointed out that the quality of works was at a high level which was confirmed by the supervisory authority. On this occasion the mayor said there would be works on the critical junctions in the city respecting the proposed solutions of the professionals. The complete works in Dusanova Street have been financed by City Land Development Programme for 2016.

Nis City Mayor Darko Bulatovicv and his Excellency the Ambassador of Finland Pertti Ikonen planted in the park in front of City Gardens in the Fortress of five new birch trees in honor of the Finnish jubilee, the centenary of independence.

In Serbia, the centenary will be celebrated by a series of events presenting the Finnish culture, art, business, as well as the way of living. One of the projects is the planting of 100 trees in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia, aimed at promoting environment-friendly behavior. Finland is ranked the greenest country in the world, with around 65 per cent of Finland’s total land area covered by forest. Forests are like water in Finland: ever-present, including in the major cities. Finnish forest management relies exclusively on tree species native to Finland. The most common and economically important trees are spruce, pine and birch.

“This year Finland celebrates 100 years of independence which is a great occasion to talk about nature conservation, one of the core values of our society. Finland is among the cleanest and greenest countries in the world and we want Serbia to be the same”, Ambassador Ikonen said.

Planting of trees in Serbia is sponsored by Lindstrom, EuroCons, Agromarket (Fiskars), KPA Unicon, I&F McCann Group and other companies supporting the program of celebrations for Finland’s 100 years of independence.

Ambassador Jan Lundin and his team were present at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment Protection, and the City of Nis, represented by State Secretary Stana Bozovic and Mayor Darko Bulatovic.

The MoU concerns the preparation of technical documentation related to the project of building a system for collecting and treating waste water in Nis. This project is one of the biggest infrastructural projects within environment protection, and Sweden is funding the development of the technical documentation.

The project of collection and treatment of wastewater for the City of Nis includes construction of a new collector, restoration of existing, afterwards, the city plant for waste water treatment, as well as additional treatment of sludge. Complete project and technical documentation for the plant and sewage will be funded from the new support programs of the Swedish International Development Agency to the environmental sector in Serbia, PEID, “Preparation and development investments in the environment ”, which starts on 25 July 2016 and is worth almost 3 million EUR.

Mayor Darko Bulatovic said that the project was important for the citizens of Nis and announced that the construction of facilities for the wastewater treatment plant would begin in 2019.