The representatives of Benetton have recently visited Nis-based textile industry Niteks to assess the condition and potentials of that factory. Benetton is to decide soon on what kind of possible business collaboration to establish with Niteks – daily newspaper Danas learned from a reliable source who also estimated that people in Nis and the authorized ministry were of the opinion that “the future of Niteks is in Benetton”. According to the information available to Danas, in case of collaboration, Niteks would be making a clothing for the Italian company.
Benetton has a big factory in Osijek and, if the orders are big and the capacities in Croatia are insufficient, the engineers from that plant visit the surrounding countries to find partners who would produce the missing goods. However, these partners must meet high standards of Benetton in terms of, primarily, quality and delivery deadlines. As the source of Danas explains, that clothing must look like it was made in Italy. According to his words, few months can pass from the moment a factory is visited to the moment a contract is agreed. He reminds that such contacts have also been made earlier with some other factories in Serbia, but there was no collaboration, so that the same thing may happen to Niteks if it fails to meet the terms.
People in Niteks were unable to confirm the arrival of Benetton’s representatives, but they said that the factory had recently been visited by the “delegation of several Italian companies, thanks to the Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency”. They also assessed that possible cooperation with Benetton would be “very good”, but that the priority was the factory’s restructuring.
– Before a possible collaboration with Benetton or some other companies, it is necessary to fix the situation in Niteks. The Privatization Agency’s decision on cancellation of the privatization was good, but nothing has changed after it was made because so-called Director Milan Kljajic, appointed by Irva Investicije, is still working at Niteks. The Agency has not yet appointed the representative of the share capital, production is still on hold, and all employees, who received only two salaries this year, are on an one-month paid leave. We will wait by the end of this month for the Ministry of Economy, the Privatization Agency and the City of Nis to do something, and if nothing happens, we will have to react – Zoran Tošić, the President of the majority Independent Trade Union, told Danas.
