December 19 (SeeNews) - China's Zijin Mining Group has injected $350 million (306.9 million euro) in the capital of Serbian copper mining and smelting company RTB Bor, acquiring majority ownership, Serbia's energy minister Aleksandar Antic said.
The Serbian government signed the final agreement with Zijin for strategic partnership in RTB Bor on Monday and the Chinese group took possession of a 63% stake in the capital of the Serbian miner, Antic said in a statement on Tuesday.
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Zijin plans to repay $200 million of RTB Bor's debt by Thursday and will rename the company to Zijin Bor Copper, he added.
The Chinese company also intends to invest $1.26 billion to improve the production operations of RTB Bor, open new mines and increase efficiency. Serbia will become the third largest copper producer in Europe and the share of mining industry in Serbia's GDP will grow to 5% from 1%, according to Antic.
Earlier this year, Serbia picked Zijin as a strategic partner in RTB Bor. Zijin agreed to keep all of the current 5,000 jobs at the company.
($ = 0.876792 euro)