Damage assessed at about EUR 1 billion, donor conference scheduled

Floods have caused huge damages, especially to the energy sector and agriculture, and our country will require international assistance in the economic recovery, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said Thursday, addressing the participants in the preparatory donor conference in Belgrade.

Jadranka Joksimovic, the minister without portfolio in charge of the European integration, said after the meeting that they had agreed to call a real donor conference.

Speaking live for UK's Sky News, the prime minister invited Europe and the world to help Serbia overcome the biggest flood-caused catastrophy ever, adding that he dared to say that the damage would be at about EUR 1 billion.

Vucic said that Serbia would have to rehabilitate the Belgrade-Bar railroad, stressing that over 50 public facilities, mainly schools, were damaged, and so were more than 300 business facilities.

Assessing that the energy sector and agriculture were struck more than other industries, Vucic noted that between 75,000 and 83,000 hectares of agricultural land were flooded.