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Mag. (MSC) Branko Kidrič, the
mayor of the community Rogaška Slatina (Slovenia)
The popular mayor of the community Rogaška Slatina
mag.Branko Kidrič finished the secondary technical
school in Celje. He studied building industry at the
Universities of Maribor and Zagreb. In the year 2006
he was – for the fourth time- elected for the mayor.
The community is a member of the Alps-Adriatic Centre
for Cross-border Co-operation (AACC) in Klagenfurt.
Last week, on a working visit, the Secretary-General
mag.Filip Warasch discussed with him the possibilities
for the future cooperation, too.
Where does Rogaška Slatina lie and what are
the economic parameters of the community?
The community Rogaška Slatina has 11.000 inhabitants,
the town itself 5.000. Rogaška lies south-east from
Celje, on the border to the Republic of Croatia. The
main economic branches are glass industry, tourism,
building industry and trade. The biggest company is
The Rogaška glass factory, where about 900 people
are employed, out of them 500 from our community.
In the community we also have the biggest producer
of organs in Europe, The organs-building workshop
of Anton Skrabl, which has already made more than
200 organs for all the continents of the world and
employs 55 persons. Also the cosmetic company Afrodita
is very successful, it employs 135 persons and sells
its products in Europe and Asia. Altogether we have
about 4.600 working places in the community. The arranging
of the tourist centre in the community however demands
significant costs. For the current maintenance of
the Thermal park we are spending yearly around 100.000
Eur, what is quite a lot. Last year the community
Rogaška Slatina participated at the international
competition “Entente florale Europe 2008” and out
of 12 countries it won the silver medal.
Thermal and medical tourism are very significant
for your community. From where do the guests come
and how is the development of this branch proceeding?
In total we have 1.500 beds in six different hotels,
three of the hotels are in reconstruction now. 550
persons are employed in thermal tourism. In the mid-term
we are planning to build three underground garages,
with parks on the ground surfaces. With the garages
we will also solve the parking problems of the hotels
, which do not have enough parking places available.
One garage will be built by the community, especially
for the needs of the complex, which is intended to
offer medical services- a kind of diagnostic centre,
for domestic patients and for patients from our neighbourhood.
In our thermal tourism we have the highest number
of foreign overnight stays in Slovenia. The Italian
guests are on the first place, being followed by the
Russians, Slovenes, Croatian and Austrian guests...
What are your wishes and expectations regarding
the cooperation with the Alps-Adriatic Centre for
Cross-border Co-operation?
We are satisfied that we started our cooperation
several years ago. Some mutual activities have already
taken place. There was-however- not a lot of cooperation
in the last period, because our country does not establish
the necessary conditions to strengthen this cooperation
on the local level, what means, the public competitions
which demand cross border cooperation would be announced
.
In positive case we have several projects ready and
with the support of AACC I believe to find relevant
partners in Austria and also to implement successfully
one or two of such projects with them.
Interview and Photo: M. Štukelj
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