Swedish companies interested in building first Eco-village in Zrenjanin

Swedish green technology companies, confident that Serbia has a great potential for the development of green technologies, now are looking to develop a pilot-project of an Eco-village in Zrenjanin, offering high-tech solutions for green development of rural areas and aiming to not just build the green villages but also to educate and include future residents in maintenance and problem solving issues.

Experts from the Swedish CleanTech platform presented their interest to partner with Zrenjanin and its municipalities in testing their concept of Eco-Village. The Embassy of Sweden in Serbia that enabled the connection of Swedish and Serbian companies in the field of sustainable production, organized their meeting in Zrenjanin, October 25ht.

“We are already cooperating with Zrenjanin. We have been here for 4 years, and that is why we are looking for partners here. The concept of eco-village is a holistic clean-tech concept that offers simple and robust solutions for rural areas’ development. It basically means: potable water, wastewater treatment system, recycling and use of renewable energy sources”, said Per-Olof Hallberg, International Relations Manager at the Swedish company Gastrike Atervinnare.

Educating and training future eco-villagers is the part of the holistic approach. “We believe that this is the model for a long collaboration and problem solutions,“ Halberg added. “We would like to start here and if the pilot-project succeeds we would implement it elsewhere”.

Anders Sundvall, president of the Association of Swedish Environmental Technology Industries (ASSET) – the umbrella organization for some 1.500 Swedish environmental technology sector – presented the Smart City Sweden platform, emphasized that they are especially oriented towards solving the issue of waste water treatment. “This is precisely Zrenjanin’s problem, and that is the reason why we see a lot of potential for cooperation,” he added.

Zrenjanin was also visited by Ahmet Basesi, representative of the composting company Vermingrom, who presented the possibilities of cooperation in the field of composting with Serbia and the region and emphasized the advantages and the importance of organic composting.

Mladen Prodanovic, coordinator for commerce and promotion at the Embassy of Sweden, said that the embassy enabled the connection of Swedish and Serbian companies in the field of sustainable production, both through projects financed the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency (SIDA) and through connecting for the purpose of development of green technologies.