Vice Premier for Economic Affairs Vladimir Pesevski, accompanied by Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy, Perica Ivanovski, and ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Macedonia, Simone Filippini, paid a visit Thursday to company "European Plants" in Tetovo village Preljubiste. "European Plants" is one of the biggest Dutch investments in the field of agriculture in Macedonia implemented with support of the PSI programme.

"The company plans to increase the capacity to 15 million plants in the future and to establish the biggest nursery for decorative plants on the Balkans. The staff consists of 40 people at the moment, and the plan is to increase the number to 150 until the end of 2010", said Vice Premier Pesevski. According to him, this investment once again confirms the long-standing successful cooperation between Macedonia and the Netherlands.

The company's headquarters in Eindhoven, the Netherlands were established 12 years ago. On 600 hectares of land the company produces 5 million plants every year, 3 million of which is being distributed to the well-known hypermarkets across Europe, such as Tesco, Praktiker, OBI, Bahr and Auchan. Their plan is to allocate a part of the production for these hypermarket chains to Macedonia in the near future.

On three locations near the Tetovo villages of Preljubiste, Zilce and Lesok, "European Plants" have grown over 4 million trees/conifers. European Plants Tetovo, apart from the successful export to Bulgaria, also plans to export trees to Serbia, Kosovo, Greece, Turkey, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Their strategy is to turn the company in Macedonia in a regional production and distribution centre for South-East European countries.

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Links to media articles:
 http://www.utrinski.com.mk/?ItemID=B9F867D992F02546B4709CEFF9676D10
 http://novamakedonija.com.mk/NewsDetal.asp?vest=121891029538&id=10&setIzdanie=21865
 http://www.idividi.com.mk/Biznis/MakBiznis/569125/index.html
 http://www.total.com.mk/default.aspx?mId=16&eventId=20101
 http://www.kanal77.com.mk/kanal77/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=596:2009-12-17-15-47-27&catid=2:2009-11-06-14-20-32&Itemid=4