Bureaucracy obstructs Niš

Downtown Niš

Niš Constantine the Great Airport located in Serbia’s third largest city in the country’s East is currently served only by one airline, the Serbian national carrier Jat Airways. The airline operates two weekly flights to Zurich. Despite attempting to commence new services to Western Europe a few years ago, they were all quickly ended due to low interest. It came as a saviour for the airport when only a few months ago Eymaxx Management GmbH from Vienna announced the construction of a logistics, commercial and cargo centre. The investment, which everybody expects to be the catalyst for development in Niš, and the whole region of southeast Serbia, is worth 61.3 million Euros and construction was supposed to start in spring. The project has not been stalled by the global financial crisis, but has been obstructed by Serbian bureaucracy. The condition for construction to begin was that the airport must be the owner of the land around it, on which the cargo centre is to be built. However the land around Niš Airport is owned by the city authorities. The Serbian government immediately requested the city to transfer the land ownership to Niš Airport however the city has not done so. The construction is still set to begin in April this year but the question remains if, until then, the land will be assigned Niš Airport. This land was recently cleared of undetonated bombs dropped by NATO from March to June 1999.