Austrian Forestry know-how for Slovakia

Extensive consulting assignment for the reorganization of the Slovakian State Forest

The managing director of the Austrian Federal Forests, Oesterreichische Bundesforste AG (OeBf AG), Dr. Thomas Uher, and the Slovakian State Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, Dr Jan Golian, signed a contract today on comprehensive advisory services. The OeBf AG, which is considered internationally to be exemplary in questions on forestry modernization and sustainable forestry, has been commissioned to develop strategies and concrete models for restructuring the Slovakian State Forestry.

The consulting activity of the OeBf AG for the Slovakian state forestry LESY SR will devote itself to work out strategies for the comprehensive modernization and restructuring of the enterprise, which will be presented to the government by fall. For the OeBf AG, advising LESY SR is "a very exciting project both from the content aspect as well as from the size of the assignment", managing director Dr. Thomas Uher explained today on the occasion of the contract signing in Bratislava. The OeBf AG gathered wide-ranging experience in the modernization of company structures and the introduction of sustainable forest management during the process of their spin-off and re-formation in 1997.

Thomas Uher also considers the fact that the OeBf AG received this assignment to be a significant proof of confidence in it�'s abilities. "This confirms the international approval of our model of modernization and sustainable forestry." In addition to LESY SR a series of other forestries in Eastern and South Eastern Europe are being advised by OeBf AG, for example in Moldavia, Hungary, Albania and Bosnia. In view of the successes they have had to date the OeBf AG plans to further expand their consulting activities in these regions in the future.

The most recent order is the restructuring of the Bulgarian State Forestry. An international consulting team under the direction of the OeBf AG will advise the Bulgarian State Forestry about a new strategic and structural orientation based on the OeBf AG�'s model. The new legal form shall go into effect on 1 January 2004. The consulting activity should be completed by October 2003 and is based on a budget volume of EUR 400,000.