Indjija Battery Plant: China Signs 100.5M Euro Deal

A framework agreement on building a battery factory in Indjija was signed today with a price tag of 100.5 million euros. The document was signed on August 31 at the Palace of Serbia in Belgrade, in the presence of President Aleksandar Vucic.

The signatures belong to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy Adrijana Mesarovic, Indjija municipality president Marko Gasic, and co founder and chief operating officer of the Chinese company Jiangsu Reliance Energy Tech, Xu Fen Lan. The signing followed a meeting Vucic held with company representatives earlier the same day in Belgrade.

The Indjija plant will produce high tech batteries for drones, humanoid robots, unmanned vehicles, advanced power tools and home appliances. Official statements did not specify how many jobs the investment will create. The deal is a direct foreign investment from one of China’s battery manufacturers, arriving as Serbia works to attract more such investment into Vojvodina and the Pomoravlje region.

What Vucic Announced

Speaking after the signing, the president said:

I believe this investment will be another turning point in Serbia’s future economic development. This is the best company for making batteries for home appliances, drones and robots.

Vucic also announced that one of the largest drone factories in Europe should open in Serbia within six months. He added that he plans to place a larger number of Chinese high tech companies in industrial zones in Cuprija and Indjija. “This is great news for us,” the president said.

A Second Factory in Quick Succession

This is not the first deal of its kind that Vucic has signed recently: he previously opened a humanoid robot factory in Sabac. That is a separate deal at a separate location, but both investments point in the same direction, bringing high value added Chinese technology into Serbia’s domestic industrial base. Unlike the Sabac plant, where robot production has already started, the Indjija factory is so far only at the framework agreement stage, with no set timeline for construction to begin.

The 100.5 million euro figure covers the entire framework agreement, not just a first phase of investment. Neither the government nor the company has yet published a payment schedule or a breakdown between capital investment and working capital, so for now the deal’s total scope is measured by this single number alone.

According to the president, Jiangsu Reliance Energy Tech is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of batteries for high tech devices. The company is entering Serbia at a time when domestic industrial policy is prioritizing the supply chain for drones and robotics, where separate partners for building the robots and drones themselves have also been announced alongside Jiangsu Reliance, meaning the entire production chain, from battery to finished device, could according to these announcements be completed within Serbia.

The next test of this announcement will be the factory’s opening date, which the president has set at six months from today.