The Serbian Government adopted today Decision on Changing the Legal Form and Decision on Amendments to the Founding Act of the PE “Serbian Railways”. This Public Enterprise shall continue working as closed joint stock company under the name of Joint Stock Company “Serbian Railways”. Its hundred percent shareholder and founder is Republic of Serbia.
This represents one of the most important decisions for the future of railway sector in Serbia, considering that “Serbian Railways” were the only railway management in Europe operating as public enterprise until now. The railway reorganization shall not cause cutting jobs and decline in employment standards. With the new organization of Serbian railways, according to all European standards, we expect many positive effects, first of all higher work efficiency, market orientation and work quality, and therefore better operating of this transport system- said Director General of “Serbian Railways”, Milovan Markovic, about Decisions on reforms of this public enterprise that were adopted on today` s session by the Serbian Government.
According to Decision on Amendments to the Founding Act, “Serbian Railways” shall form 4 subsidiaries: Subsidiary for Public Railway Infrastructure Management, Subsidiary for Passenger Traffic and Rolling Stock Maintenance, Subsidiary for Freight Traffic and Rolling Stock Maintenance and Subsidiary for Property Management. It was also prescribed that control, i.e. parent company, and subsidiaries, i.e. daughter companies, make together Joint Stock Company “Serbian Railways”.
With this reform financing of the railway traffic in Serbia shall be significantly changed. The interaction between the Government and subsidiaries, and mutual interaction of subsidiaries, shall be arranged by signing the contracts. According to the contracts, the state shall provide funds for infrastructure maintenance and development, while the passenger traffic, as obligation of public transport, shall be subsidized by specified number of trains. In this way, contractual purpose of budget resources and contractual liabilities and responsibilities of subsidiaries shall be precisely defined.
