„Serbian intelligence and young engineers represent the backbone of Millennium Team, as well as the entire construction industry. Therefore, it is essential to invest in education and training of staff, and this is exactly what our company is doing,” emphasized Stojan Vujko, the General Manager of Millennium Team, during the panel discussion “Infrastructure and Connectivity” at this year’s Kopaonik Business Forum. In addition to Millennium Team investing in scholarships for high school students and university students and providing support to educational institutions, the Millennium Team group employs as many as 500 engineers. Moreover, during the past year alone, 100 new engineers with various profiles were hired.
“On average, we hired two engineers per week. And that is the essence,” Vujko highlighted.
He also reminded that for decades, the construction sector was on the brink of collapse, completely devastated, but that over the last 15 years, it has experienced a full recovery.
“Our ambition is to bring back the former glory of the construction industry and spread it across the region and the world. Over the past 15 years, our companies have been working on the most demanding projects precisely because we educate and invest in our workforce. Today, we still import a lot of labor, but unlike in the past, it is mostly unskilled labor. Engineers, designers – that is Serbian intelligence, without which there is no construction industry. Thanks to them, today we are on equal footing and in a partnership with foreign companies that trust us,” Vujko assessed.
The General Manager of Millennium Team also highlighted during the panel that certain conditions are necessary to strengthen the construction industry, and these are stability and predictability, both of which have been met.
„For such a large volume of investments, financial market stability is necessary, including stability in terms of inflation, exchange rates, and reliable collections, as well as predictability that can guarantee the long-term nature of projects and planning for the next five or ten years. We now have that, and that is why we can have so many investments. Therefore, I dare say that our construction industry is young today and that it is only now growing,” said Vujko.
As an example of good cooperation, he mentioned the project with the company Power Construction Corporation of China.
„We are working equally with them on the EXPO project, and we carry a significant portion of the work and responsibility, which helps to build trust. Thanks to this, we received an invitation from them to go out together to the EU market and work together on projects in Poland,” added Vujko.
The theme of this year’s Kopaonik Business Forum (KBF) was “Serbia 2027: Striving for a High-Income Economy.” The panel, moderated by Dragijana Radonjić Petrović, Vice President of the Association of Economists of Serbia, featured the participation of Filip Boras, partner at Baker McKenzie, Nikola Đukić, President of the Executive Board of UNIQA Non-Life Insurance, Darko Glišić, Minister for Public Investments of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Miodrag Poledica, Executive Director of the Strategy, Design, and Development Sector at „JP Putevi Srbije“, and Nikola Pontara, Director of the World Bank Office in Serbia.
