An empty port, the departure of renowned foreign companies, job losses, millions in damage - these are the negative effects that the implementation of the new Law on Free Zones will create, said representatives of companies operating in that part of the Port of Bar at today's session of the Open Parliament of the Bar Assembly entitled "Is the Port of Bar Free Zone 'Captured'?"
Representatives of these companies will, in cooperation with local assembly councilors, reach certain conclusions in the coming days, and they will move in the direction of the need to amend this law, postpone its implementation, assess its constitutionality, and create a working group that will define the way of working in the meantime, until a solution to their problems is found.
President of the Municipal Assembly (MA) of Bar Branislav Nenezić closed the session and said that, after the conclusions are reached, he will convene an urgent session of the local parliament to discuss the matter, and he expects the support of all 37 councilors to jointly submit the initiative proposed in the conclusions to the Government of Montenegro.
Nenezić said that at no point, when the problems related to the adoption of the Law on Free Zones began, was his engagement politically motivated. This, he stated, is one of the reasons why there was no live broadcast of the session today, but rather a desire to hear from people who are directly affected by these measures.
As a member of parliament, he said, he can "push further" the conclusions through potential amendments to this legal solution, in order to eliminate the damage to all economic entities operating in the free zone of the port of Bar.
Nenezić also said that when he asked a parliamentary question to Prime Minister Milojko Spajić regarding this law, it was "clear that not everyone in the current majority is happy and satisfied" with this solution.
He commented on the poor turnout of councilors in the Bar Municipal Assembly and added that the request for attendance was also rejected by the management of "Luka Bar" AD, for which Nenezić said there was a political motive and that the opinion of the director of that company was - Ilija Pješčić that the Bar Municipal Council is not the right place and address for this topic because it has no authority on the matter, which he informed him in correspondence.
The call was not responded to even by the office of the Minister of Economic Development – Nika Đeljošaj Minister of Maritime Affairs Filip Radulović and the Minister of Finance News of Vuković.
They're shutting down the entire zone because of smuggling.
Aleksandar Adamović, director of the company "Pacorini", which has been operating in Bar for 25 years and is engaged in the export of services in the free zone of the port, said that the Ministry of Economic Development pushed through this law, with a 20-minute vote in the Parliament of Montenegro, which no one read and which had a public debate to which none of the companies it affects were invited.
"The point is that due to the problem that was happening in the port of Bar - cigarette smuggling, a rule is being passed to regulate that segment by shutting it down, because if there are no cigarettes - there is no problem. Because of that, and those rules, all the rest of us need to get involved," he said.
The law entails numerous controls, processes and procedures, he stated, adding that it declares an entire port area a free zone and puts it "under a lid" under which they will need luck.
It will lead them, as he stated, to a situation where a company in the city operates normally and a company in the free zone "operates abnormally" because the law requires them to be accountable to a number of competent authorities.
There are a total of eight laws with which this law is in conflict, he emphasized, and in that section he listed the Law on Protection from Competition, the Law on Protection of Personal Data, the Law on Business Companies, the Law on Obligations...
"It is also against the Constitution of Montenegro because it prohibits us from doing the same outside that fence. It is much more difficult for us to work in the zone than outside, and it does not offer any benefits for those of us who are inside. In the absence of real users of the zone, they started inventing various activities that fall under the user category and forced us to register as users of the zone, and our clients, who have nothing to do with this territory because our goods are all in transit," said Adamović.
He emphasized that this law implies that their foreign user, who is in transit and has no contact with that zone, will have to submit reports to the police financial intelligence unit.
He said that they will have to justify money and turnover "that they don't look at" because they are not in the business of buying and selling goods, but rather services.
Adamović also said that they turned to Nenezić to make their voices heard because, apparently, they are too small to reach the Prime Minister. Milojko Spajić and looking at the prime minister's last watch, they saw that he was not in that matter and never came to the zone.
"The law was made by people who did not consult the people who work in the zone," he concluded, underlining that companies operating there will have to lay off workers and that the industrial chain will shut down. Such a solution, he said, does not exist in any country that is a member of the European Union.
One in the draft, the other in the law
Bogdan Ljutica, owner of the company "Petrolšped", said that he does business with two foreign companies in the transit of cargo - sheet metal and granite. In addition to Bar, these companies operate through the ports of Thessaloniki and Rijeka, but do not have a registered company there.
"This law has passed under the radar of companies related to the free zone. The public debate lasted 21 days and no one found it appropriate to organize a meeting in the free zone of the port where we, who have little experience, would present our comments and suggestions, so the law would be designed differently and there would be no these problems," said Ljutica.
He stated that the law is contradictory in the part that defines who is a free zone user, stipulating that they must be registered in Montenegro, even though their users with whom they do business are companies registered abroad.
He said that he was informed by the ministry that was preparing the law that these companies would not have to register, which was later not included in the final text of the law. The trade in tobacco and tobacco products is prohibited, he said, and assessed that, although he had never worked with it, it is a commodity like any other, but the state needs to find a solution to put this commodity within the legal framework.
He said that due to this law, he will be put in a situation to reduce the volume of work through the port of Bar, and that chain involves about a thousand workers, if we take into account "Port of Adria" and other companies that operate there.
With this law, he stated, the state wants to impose additional costs on foreign partners, which, in his opinion, will result in them simply stopping doing business in Montenegro and "leaving" to Croatia, Albania and Greece.
Companies will look for another port
Executive Director of "Port of Adria" Kara sits. stated that this problem and the adoption of the law did not surprise him because they had gone through similar things many times in the last 10 years, through which they had "survived".
He pointed out that "Port of Adria" was never part of the cigarette smuggling problem, in which they never participated, but rather supported the competent authorities in solving it - by installing cameras throughout the port after privatization.
A lot of things are happening in the port outside the existing law, he said, and they have been warning every ministry about this for five or six years and they have never received a solution, but have mostly received confirmation that the work is being done outside the law, but that they have no solution for it.
They have lost a large part of their business, numerous foreign companies, and are still under pressure from shipping companies that are considering whether to conduct their business through Bar. There will be many negative effects that they cannot even foresee, he said, and the damage is in the millions if we consider that shipping companies bring in over 20 percent of the company's revenue.
"The presence in Montenegro has shown that if you ask politely for something, it is difficult to implement it. We have been politely asking for everything for 12 years but we have no solution. If we continue like this, we will not have a solution, so we ask what additional work we need to do to make our voice heard," said the director of "Port of Adria", the privatized part of the port of Bar.
Bojan Cejovic from "CMA CGM Montenegro", the largest French shipping company and the third largest in the world, which has had an office in Montenegro for two years, said that this legal solution prohibits tobacco transit through Montenegro:
"We are fortunate that the largest tobacco manufacturer and distributor - 'Philip Morris', which has a factory in Niš, has chosen Bar as the port through which it distributes its products. We are talking about a figure of 4940 containers annually. With this law, that company had to redirect its goods to ports in the region - Rijeka, Thessaloniki and Genoa, which increases their costs."
The cessation of transit, he said, will significantly reduce the arrival of ships and the Port of Bar will become less desirable for ships because it will send an image of an undesirable distribution route, and it is important for them to fight for every job, in relation to the position the port has on the regional map of industrial ports.
Dalibor Pelević, CEO of MSC Montenegro, the world's largest shipping company, said that this problem does not only apply to Port of Adria and Port of Bar AD, but to the entire system that relies on these two port operators and employs around three thousand people.
"We have a study by the Chamber of Commerce from 2019, which was implemented in the development strategy of the Municipality of Bar from 2021 to 2025, where we can see that logistics activities carried out through the Port of Bar bring 20 percent of the budget revenue to the Municipality of Bar. That is twice as much as tourism and hospitality," Pelević said.
These activities, according to him, bring between 100 and 150 million euros to Montenegro, and the potential is far greater.
"Politicians have committed genocide against the logistics system of the Port of Bar," said Pelević, criticizing the current and previous regimes, which he believes have hindered the development of the Port of Bar in various ways.
He also said that shipowners have no problem going through other ports, they even have large shipowners who are interested in other ports and are working to make those ports as "busy" as possible, but the problem is with those in Bar who are "fighting for every container".
He said that they, at that company, had initiated a self-initiated inspection of goods coming from "Philip Morris", which is not the practice at any other port.
A solution must be found.
Director of the Port Authority of Montenegro Stanko Deretic He said that this topic was not within his jurisdiction, but he was interested in hearing more about the overall way of working in the Port of Bar and assessed that "if Montenegro is a living organism, then the Port of Bar is its aorta" and that "a healthy organism should not have a problem in that place."
Everyone in the country should have the same goal, he said - for the port of Bar to be full of ships, not empty, so he is optimistic that a solution will be found for this problem as well.
Igor Banović, owner of the company "Jadro Pilot" from Bar, which deals with ship reception, and representative of the company "Jadroagent", which is a logistician in the free zone, said that these two companies have about 100 people who work as agents for shipping companies and also work in mooring, freight forwarding...
"With us, things are completely reversed. The state should take care of its own company - the Port of Bar, the only commercial port in Montenegro, and the state, consciously or unconsciously, blocks and creates such a business barrier for the global company 'Philip Morris' to carry out its activities through the free zone of the Port of Bar. There is nothing free in this law, except for the title of the law," Banović assessed.
Transit, storage and everything else has been suspended, so "not a single cigarette can be lit in the free zone of the Port of Bar," he said, adding that this has nothing to do with the European Union because it does not require this from Montenegro.
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