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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Decree on incentives for production of audiovisual works adopted

Belgrade, 10 February 2018

At the proposal of the Ministry of Economy, the Serbian government adopted a new Decree on incentives for the production of audiovisual works, which increased the percentage of returns to the investor from the current 20 to 25 percent, which significantly increased the competitiveness of Serbia as a filming location.

In addition, the budget for 2018 for this project has been doubled from the previous RSD 400 million to RSD 800 million.

In the first two years of the implementation of the programme, the filming of 37 domestic and international audiovisual projects have been supported, bringing more than €30 million in investments to Serbia. Another 20 projects are in progress, and with an additional incentive of 25 percent, it is expected that significantly more investments will be made annually.

The analysis shows that for every euro invested from the budget through incentives, € 6.1 was returned to the economy of Serbia, and about €2 euros to the state budget through taxes, contributions, payment of tariffs for the use of public locations and services of public companies.

Of the total investment, only 61 percent of costs are direct production costs, while 39 percent are indirect costs that have fallen into other industries - tourism, transport, trade, infrastructure, service and other business services. Through the programme, 2,254 project-based jobs were created for the first 14 months.

Thanks to new technologies and distribution channels, there is a growing demand for audiovisual content worldwide. At the same time, competition among countries for attracting productions to their locations, using their human and technical resources, is getting tougher. That is why the decision to increase the incentive in Serbia by 5 percent is crucial for the further development of our audiovisual industry, as well as the promotion of our country in the world, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic underlined.

Thanks to the effects of this programme over the past two years, we have supported the proposal of the Ministry of Economy and the industry itself to further increase incentives, as well as to increase the budget of the programme, according to Brnabic.

She added that attracting high-quality films, series, high-budget commercials, visual effects, animations and numerous digital forms employs many of our people and promotes our country in the world.

Now we have a task to find investors for additional TV and film studios, as well as to train a large number of film workers, which we already are doing together with the National Employment Service, whereas the training will begin this year, she said.

The Serbian Incentive Programme, which has been successfully implemented by the Ministry of Economy for two years and is administered by the Film Centre of Serbia, is unique in the world, especially in Europe, because it includes the production of TV commercials, visual effects, any form of digital audiovisual content, including new formats such as virtual and extended reality (VR and AR).

The process of submitting applications for the return of incentives is very simple, transparent and highly efficient, which makes it more competitive in relation to the incentive programmes in the region. As the programme has been flawlessly realised in the last two years, Serbia gained investor confidence and positioned itself as a credible and professional country for investment.

For over ten years now, “Film in Serbia” has been working on the international promotion of Serbia as a location for filming projects and makes a significant contribution to the incentive programme to attract a large number of foreign productions and helping the growth of the economy of our country. During this year, the Film Centre of Serbia and "Film in Serbia" will jointly promote a new, improved program at all leading world festivals.

Additionally, the state has significantly increased the budget of the Serbian Film Centre for supporting domestic productions, and now it amounts to more than RSD 1 billion. The annual budget for the film industry in the period 2010-2012 amounted to approximately RSD 23 million, in 2013 it was increased to more than RSD 200 million, in 2016 it was more than RSD 600 million and in 2017 it was slightly above RSD 715 million.