A leader on the car industry market, the German company ZF opens its factory in Pančevo within the first phase of the EUR 160 million investment. The factory will start producing machines, generators for hybrid and electric drives, gearshift switches and microswitches in the first half of June.

The Karanovic & Partners team, led by Senior Partner Marjan Poljak and Senior Associates ⃰ Ana Stanković and Ana Luković, advised ZF Group in this greenfield investment on all local law aspects of this project. Our legal experts provided full support in a number of different areas, including corporate, real estate, employment etc.

The beginning of the factory’s operations, on 10.8 ha of the North business zone in Pančevo, which the city has given to the investor free of compensation, will mean 540 new jobs for the people of Pančevo.

The Serbian Government pronounced this project an investment of importance for the state’s development. For Pančevo, this is the first direct greenfield production-technological investment in the last 40 years. The factory will open 1,000 new jobs in total, as well as enable a significant transfer of state-of-the-art technology and an increase of public revenues – 67% of which will remain in the local self-government.

ZF will start the second phase of investments this year as well, instead of 2022, as initially planned. The second stage entails the expansion of the production to an additional 30,000 square metres of space, and the establishment of a research and development centre, for which the company has set another EUR 60 million.

ZF operates in 40 countries around the world and has a global workforce of over 146,000 employees. In 2017, it recorded sales of EUR 36.4 billion. The company invests more than six percent of its sales in research and development annually, in particular for the development of efficient and electric drivelines. ZF group is committed to its Vision Zero – zero accidents and zero emissions being the end goal of all the company’s activities.

*Independent attorneys at law in cooperation with Karanović & Partners.