Danica Popović, retired professor of the Faculty of Economics and author of the analysis on the profitability of the "Rio Tinta" project in Serbia, estimated that the annual income from lithium mining would be 2,6 euros per resident of Serbia.
"Based on the economic and financial analysis, as well as due to the many risks related to its implementation, the Jadar project is not justified and should be stopped", is the conclusion of Zoran Drakulic, founder of Point Grupa with experience in mining, Boško Mijatović, founder of the Center for Liberal-Democratic studies, Dejan Šoškić, professor at the Faculty of Economics and former governor of the National Bank, and Danica Popović, retired professor at the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, reports N1.
The authors of the analysis say that the economic effects of the Jadar project are extremely uncertain, while in the most favorable scenario they are equal to zero.
Professor Danica Popović assessed in the N1 program "Behind the News" that the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, currently has two tasks.
"One is Rio Tinto, to provide what the EU and the Germans need, which is to have lithium in Europe and to make a drastic jump from Chinese lithium and from the Chinese market. We are there as their protection. Second, which is Vučić's task, is to hand over Kosovo. And I think that all this hubbub is deliberately raised to such a level so that Kosovo would not be talked about", the professor assesses.
When it comes to financial parameters, as he says, the goal is to see things less clearly in the multitude of data, as well as that with the study they did, they wanted to show that per resident of Serbia, the annual earnings from lithium mining would be 2,6 euros.
They came to this information, says the professor, by finding a study by the "Ergo Institute" on the Rio Tinto website, which, according to her, is quite unknown.
"We took the official data of Rio Tinto. So, the numbers we operate with are the numbers of the Rio Tinto study. They are talking about making one billion a year and of that 695 million will be annual revenue. That means 695 billion in 40 years", he points out.
The costs that the company would have, says interviewee N1, would not be spent in Serbia.
When asked what is Serbia's logic if it "loses" from lithium mining, the professor states:
"It is not our logic, it is the logic of the European Union and Germany. Mr. Scholz (German Chancellor Olaf) was there to explain to us how we should do it. It started because of Europe's political need to stand up to China. They don't know what they're going to do with China and Chinese lithium and Chinese electric cars. America has put a 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars. Europe about 50 percent. They are desperate, they don't know what to do. One of the things they can do is start their own production in the country. It's like in socialism, when we tried to replace everything. Europe is doing all that now and making its own lithium," she explained.
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