“Ore rent in Serbia is from three to seven percent, which is frighteningly small. It is our only contracted and stable income. In other countries, that percentage is always double-digit,” Milan Kovacevic, a consultant for foreign investments, said. In that way, he shattered all the lies and illusions that the representatives of the government set for us – that the mining and excavation of lithium, which threatens to destroy our nature, is in fact a great economic chance.
It is estimated that there are more than 70 locations in Serbia where ore mining is being researched and prepared. With such wealth you need to be careful
“It would be wise to change the regulations and increase the percentages. Higher tariffs should be prepared if we think we benefit from mining,” says our interlocutor.
As things stand now, we give our mineral wealth to the budget, but we do not have the right assessment of the damage to the environment that it can bring.
“It would be wise if a team was made, not everything should be left in the hands of ministries. One study should be made – from that we would determine how much it would be economically or not useful for us. If the consequences were included in that study, then those consequences should be included in our expenses. If the fee is three to seven percent – does it cover anything, or will we have to do something else with our money?” he explains all the omissions and asks the right questions.
We spend money easily and enter large projects easily. Even the smallest entrepreneur is in civilized countries, where they are educated a little better in a situation to put on paper – they have so much capacity – I will sell so much – I have so much left. Nobody did it. Someone makes a decision here and then they work on it. We were immediately delighted that a new mineral was found in our country and the idea spread, sailing everything went in a strange order. The biggest negative side of mining is the impact on the environment, and we still don’t know how big it will be,” warns Kovacevic.
Economist Dusan Nikezic is not satisfied with the attitude towards mineral wealth in Serbia either.
“We wouldn’t have a problem with Rio Tinto today if this government hadn’t changed the Mining Law in 2015 and introduced automatism, according to which the holder of investigative rights automatically gets the right to exploit the country’s mineral wealth. If that hadn’t happened, the state simply wouldn’t give Rio Tinto the right of exploitation because the proposed model of exploitation destroys the environment, and this Australian company would remain the owner of the results of research work, which are extremely valuable and could sell them to the state or another investor, so there would be no need for the state to pay. In a similar way, this government kept silent about the explored reserves of copper and gold in the vicinity of Bor and literally donated them to the Chinese, who today ruthlessly exploit them, export them to China and earn billions of euros, which could and should have remained in Serbia,” Nikezić thinks.
The percentages vary depending on the mineral raw material – the ore rent for coal is three percent of the income, for metal ores it is five percent, and for oil and gas it is seven percent. Serbia is one of the countries with the lowest ore rent rate in Europe. For example, while the ore rent for oil and gas in Croatia is 10%, in Slovenia 18%, Romania 12%, Russia 22%, in many developed countries of high environmental sensitivity ore rent is between 25% and 30% of extracted ore.
How is ore rent distributed in Serbia?
So that out of the paid ore rent – 60 percent belongs to the budget of Serbia, and 40 percent to the municipality on whose territory the exploitation is carried out. And if the exploitation is done on the territory of Vojvodina, then the money from the rent is divided so that 50 percent goes to the republic budget, 10 percent to the provincial budget, and 40 percent to the budget of the municipality on whose territory the exploitation is done, Nova reports.
