The spatial plan for the mines near Bor and Zaječar is financed by Zijin

The Serbian government adopted the decision to draft the special purpose spatial plan for the "Čukaru Peki" and "Malka Golaja" mining and metallurgical complexes. The procedure is run by Serbia's Agency for Spatial Planning and Urbanism, and the cost of drafting is borne by Serbia Zijin Mining.

This means the document on which decisions about 126 square kilometres, about resettling residents and about environmental safeguards will rest is paid for by the company that stands to gain from it. Formally, the law allows this. Substantively, it is hard to ask citizens to read such a document as neutral expert analysis - particularly when the document itself admits that no strategic environmental assessment is produced at this stage.

According to exploration so far, Malka Golaja holds around 2.81 million tonnes of copper at an average grade of 1.87 per cent, and 92 tonnes of gold at an average of 0.61 grams per tonne of ore.