Krusik contracts export worth USD 273 million – Production growth of 20% planned in 2017

The management and the employees at Valjevo's Krusik had good reason to celebrate the factory's 78th anniversary in February. The Krusik holding corporation ended the business year 2016 with total revenues of RSD 5.7 billion and a profit of RSD 520 million. The revenues were 75% times higher than in 2015 and 25% higher than planned, as Mladen Petkovic, General Manager of Krusik, an important factory within Serbia's arms industry, points out for Politika.

– Compared to 2013, which the factory ended with a loss of RSD 1 billion, the result is extremely good. We recorded a constant progress in operations. We intend to increase the production by an additional 20% in 2017 – Petkovic says.

– At the moment, the contracted export is worth USD 273 million, which means that our capacities will be fully employed in 2017 and 2018 – the chairman of Krusik points out.

At the recently held arms exhibit in Abu Dhabi, IDEX, representatives of the Valjevo factory signed an agreement worth more than USD 20 million with a UAE company. The factory currently employs 2,385 workers. A total of 137 new workers have been employed in Krusik in 2017 so far. In each job contest, there are ten candidates for each job position. This is not surprising considering that the average net salary in 2016 amounted to RSD 46,000, slightly above the state average, that the salaries are paid regularly, without a single day of delay and including all payments to the state.

Krusik is also implementing two large investments, worth a total of around EUR 20 million. The first phase of the rocket engine chamber factory was completed in 2016, and the construction works on the new ammunition factory are near completion. The machinery and the equipment for that facility have already arrived and should start being mounted in mid-March, whereas the ammunition factory is to officially open in a month and a half.

HK Krušik a.d. Valjevo

Krusik Valjevo

Mladen Petkovic

arms industry

military industry

export of arms from Serbia

arms industry export

IDEX Abu Dhabi

rocket engine chamber factory

ammunition factory