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Gazprom’s sister company becomes second biggest exporter in Serbia

BELGRADE, December 09 /ITAR-TASS/. Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS) or the Petroleum Industry of Serbia, a sister company of Russia’s Gazprom Neft, has become the second biggest oil and gas exporter in Serbia, Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic said at a meeting with Gazprom Neft’s board chairman Alexander Dyukov on Monday.

The first ten months of 2013 saw a 63% growth in NIS exports over the same period last year, Dacic said. The Serbian prime minister emphasised that the company’s tax payments to the Serbian budget had shown sustainable growth.

“NIS paid 182 billion dinars to the Serbian budget last year and in the first nine months of this year. That accounts for 10 percent of the republic’s total budget revenues,” the Serbian prime minister went on to say.

Dacic and Dyukov noted that 1.5 billion euro had already been invested in NIS and there were plans to invest the same amount in future.

Gazprom Neft holds a 56.15 percent stake in NIS, one of the biggest vertically integrated energy companies in South-East Europe. Serbia owns 29.88 percent of NIS shares. NIS owns two oil refineries in Serbia - one in the town of Panchevo, near Belgrade, and the other in the city of Novi Sad. Their aggregate annual capacity is 7 million tonnes. NIS also owns a workshop for the production of automobile fuel in Elemir.

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