Future of Brodoremont ?

Brodoremont is a company founded in 1796, officialy in 1802. First the slaves and the prisoners from England were digging the channel which was finaced by Maria Teresa from Austro-Hungaria and was planed and constructed by Hungarian Kis brothers. Digging the channel was the biggest investment in Europe. The first dry dock in Europe on this part of Danube lasted for 30 years. Then Danube changed its course, so a new dry dock was built 6 km away from this one. The plans were made by the same man that built the Eiffel tower. First the company was specialzed for maintaining motors on the ships, but now it serves for ship-building and ship repairing. The company nowdays doesn’t work, it’s on sale. Currently it has 25 workers which are payed by another firm. The company had 125 workers, maximum 150. They worked for Serbian, German, Austrian and Dutch companies. All ships for Serbian buyers are fully built here, interior and exterior were built here and some parts were imported from Croatia and Slovenia. When building the big ships,the method is to build them in two separated parts and then ship them to Apatin to weld them because Apatin has a bigger shipyard. In 2009 the workers had a 10.2% higher average income than the rest of the workers in Vojvodina, but then the crises came and the director declared bankruptcy. The ships are built from steel and need 6 mounths to be ready. Plans for the future are to sell the company on a public auction in September: the price now is 1.800.000 euros. There is one German and one Dutch company interested in buying the shipyard. The workers believe that when the company is sold, it will continue its old tradition of reparing and building ships for river and sea transport.