General Project Concept

The automotive industry in the ex-Yugoslav countries has a relatively long tradition of over 50 years, and has achieved remarkable results in the past. Probably the most vivid examples of these results are the annual production figures realised in „Zastava” in Kragujevac (220.000 vehicles) and in „VW” in Vogosca nearby Sarajevo (35.000 passenger cars). Further, the trucks production in TAM and FAP, and the hundreds of companies that dealt with production of automotive components shows the automotive industry’s potential in these countries.

After the transitional period over the past 18 years, the privatisation of the companies in this sector is completed and many companies managed to successfully switch to a new market oriented approach to work and management. Yet, many automotive suppliers lost their markets and are nowadays working below their capacities. For instance, the current annual production in “Zastava” is only 15.000 vehicles and “VW Sarajevo” about 3.500 passenger cars. Although there are positive trends in increasing production and exports, the process of improving the overall performance should be enhanced in order to regain and exceed past positions in the global automotive market.

The Project aims to contribute towards faster development of the regional automotive suppliers and to assist in fostering sales of products that meet the relevant quality standards. In that regard, the Project implements the following instruments:

-           Establishment of a regional internet portal, which would increase the regional and international visibility of the automotive suppliers from SEE. The portal will provide bilateral platform for the players of the regions‘automotive industry and will facilitate the regional and international cooperation.

-           Establishment of an office in Germany, which acts as a representative office of the automotive clusters from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia and implements pro-active marketing activities for the automotive suppliers from these countries. This office is also authorized to provide information about Slovenian and Croatian automotive industry.

-       Support to joint participation in important fairs (Automechanika-Franfurt, International Automobile Fair in Belgrade etc.), organization of promotional events and B2B meetings, and organization of trips of business delegations to Western Europe as well as to the Western Balkans automotive suppliers.

Through this concept, based on three levels of activities, the automotive clusters from the region intend to overcome the weaknesses of the domestic automotive industries and to develop new perspectives of cross-country co-operation among the companies, and with other relevant public actors and bodies having responsibility for the automotive industry and business development in general.

The levels A, B and C can be described as follows:

-     Level C – Business development and marketing for selected companies on single company level: Preparatory measures and support to enter new European markets; consulting and training services in business development, technology, quality, marketing and sales.

-     Level B – Activities on cluster level to promote strategic co-operations and networks between companies and relevant bodies in the automotive sector on regional and national level.

-     Level A (,Made in SEE’) – Supra-regional and trans-national exchange of marketing strategies and information for automotive suppliers from entire SEE region.