MARKO ČADEŽ
INTERVIEW
THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF COOPERATION
President of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce
The economic and political cooperation with Germany has reached its highest level in the last decade and a half
G
ermany tops the list of the biggest investors in Serbia, it is one of our biggest foreign trade partners, and the biggest bilateral donor which, all together, translates into a strong support to the Serbian economy in boosting its regional connections, and increasing its capacity for the implementation of the European integration process.
How would you rate the overall quality of the Serbian-German economic cooperation? ― Germany has invested over 3.5 billion EUR in Serbia so far and donated funds in support of various development projects in an effort to boost the capacity of the Serbian economy. The foreign trade between the two countries, aided by investments and export activities of German companies operating in Serbia, as well as by the heightened demand for Serbian products in Germany, has reached its highest level in the last ten
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Focus
GERMANY 2017
years, and has increased severalfold compared to the decade earlier which is very important for the relatively small Serbian economy. The value of the trade between the two countries last year was almost 4 billion US dollars (or 3.98 billion EUR). Our exporters, which number has been growing year-on-year to now over 2,200, exported 1.75 billion EUR worth of goods and services to Germany, which is a 16.4% hike compared to 2015. Also, German export to Serbia grew, albeit slower than last year, by 10% to 2.23 billion EUR. The growing export of Serbian services has added to the quality of the trade between the two countries in the last few years. The export amounted to the value of 420 million EUR, while the two countries exported 663 million EUR worth of services to each other. Serbia recorded a 177-million-EUR-surplus here.
Records show that there are close to 350 German companies operat-
GERMANY HAS INVESTED OVER 3.5 BILLION EUR IN SERBIA SO FAR AND DONATED FUNDS IN SUPPORT OF VARIOUS DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
ing in Serbia. What can be done to increase this number? ― Only in the last month and a half, four factories have either begun to be built or have been opened – IGB Automotive has opened a production facility in Inđija, Leoni opened the one in Subotica, and Knott Autoflex (a mixed German-Hungarian-Serbian company) has opened a factory in Bečej. Lidl is already building its first supermarkets in Serbia, Kromberg&Schubert has started preliminary works on the construction of a factory in Kruševac, Tönnies is getting ready to implement a huge investment in 20 modern pig farms, while Hydroweb is going to build a production facility in Jagodina. The German companies that are already operating here are extending their existing capacities, the new ones are arriving, and the number of German companies in Serbia has grown to now over 350. When a German company decides to invest, that is usually long-term. In the last survey conducted by the German-Ser-