Opening conference
On Thursday, September 23, 2021, the Nova Gradiška industrial zone was the venue of the opening conference for the project “Center for Competences for Advanced Engineering Nova Gradiška (CEKOM NI NG)”.
As it was highlighted, “CEKOM NI NG” is one of the projects of great importance for our city and the whole region.
The purpose of the project is to improve the competitiveness of the business sector and the entire region, by establishing development and research infrastructure and increasing investments into the development of new products and services based on research and development activities, with special emphasis on adequate and efficient environmental and resource management.
Metalworking, machine engineering and food production represent the most important industrial sectors in the Brod-Posavina County and in Slavonia. The results of conducted studies suggest low competitiveness of these sectors caused by, among other things, very low levels of investment into research and development activities.
The studies also suggest a high potential of these sectors to become internationally competitive in the foreseeable future. It is precisely the realization of the CEKOM project that represents one of the key factors of the regional innovation system and instruments to respond to the current unfavorable state.
The CEKOM NI NG project will bring about the establishment of a solid research and development infrastructure, contribute to the development of a regional innovation system, provide support to the private sector’s investments into these activities, enable the development of human potentials in advanced engineering, strengthen the presence and competitiveness on the international market, encourage equal development in Croatia, and position the city of Nova Gradiška as a city of development, knowledge and innovation.
The implementation of seven collaborative research and development projects also entails planned development and commercialization of seven innovative products that are new to the companies and the market, employment of ten new researchers, protection of intellectual property, increase in the private sector’s investments into research and development activities by 150%, which will contribute to an increase in partner companies’ revenues by 229%, exports by 232%, profitability by 462%, employment growth (109 employees), and establishment of 25 new tech companies – CEKOM director Adam Đanić reported.
Project worth over 119 million kuna
The total planned implementation period for CEKOM NI NG is 54 months in two phases, the investment phase of 18 months and the operational phase of 36 months.
The total project value is 119.2 million kuna, of which grant funding accounts for 78.1 million.
This praiseworthy project was welcomed on behalf of the Brod-Posavina County by the head of the County Administrative Office for Economy and Agriculture, Željko Burazović, deputy mayor of Nova Gradiška Borislav Vidošić, and director of the Brod-Posavina County Development Center, Mirela Brechelmacher.
Members of the project team for project management, Sandra Petrović and Jelena Pirović, acquainted the audience with the details of the project, its objectives, implementation, expected outputs and benefits.
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