Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has attended the opening of a new plant for the production of arms ammunition in Uzici, in the west of the country.

The new ammunition plant will produce some more 50 million units of small weapons ammunition.  The plant will produce the most popular cartridges for the Serbian Armed Forces: 5.56 mm, 7.62 mm and 9 mm.

The new Serbian cartridge factory equipped with advanced equipment for the production of ammunition supplied by Lachaussée from Belgium.  Its construction took 14 months.

Jugoimport SPDR has already hired 47 employees in the factory, as their number will rise to 250 by the end of this year. The number of employees at the Uzici factory will reach 470 by the end of 2018, Vucic also said.

In April 2016, the Serbian government said Jugoimport SDPR plans to invest a total of 90 million euro ($102.4 million) in the construction of the factory. The factory will also launch the production of ammunition of 12.7 mm on a later stage, Serbian public broadcaster Radio Televizija Srbije (RTS) said on Saturday.