Prime Minister Ana Brnabic expressed gratitude today to US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross for his first visit to our country, and underlined that this is the right moment for the development of the political and economic relations between the two countries.
Brnabic said that we are proud of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of lifting the Serbian flag at the White House as a sign of alliance, and stated that our bilateral relations must be based both on the common history and on the potentials of the very big Serbian diaspora and significant US investments in Serbia.
The Prime Minister thanked Mr Ross for the fact that the United States has provided nearly $1 billion in development assistance to projects in Serbia since 2001, which have encouraged our economic growth and improved the work of local communities.
The United States, as one of the largest foreign investors, has invested around $4 billion, and these investments created jobs for more than 17,000 employees, the Prime Minister said, highlighting the importance of companies NCR and Microsoft, whose entrance on the Serbian market represents a great impetus for economic and technological development.
She also pointed out that the government's goal is to transform our economy from an economy that is primarily based on investments to an economy based on knowledge and innovation, on which the government is working intensively.
One of the challenges is the shortage of 15,000 IT professionals, on which the state is working by introducing new elements in the formal education and through retraining programmes for junior developers, which are intended for people who have talent for IT and who want to change their careers, Brnabic said.
US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross especially emphasised the importance of the leading US companies already operating in Serbia, but also stressed that there is still plenty of room for investment in our country.
He praised the reforms that are being implemented in Serbia, which is why he expects more intensive economic cooperation, and especially stressed the importance of the Memorandum of Understanding in the field of infrastructure between Serbia and the US which was signed yesterday, which he sees as an extraordinary opportunity for the engagement of American construction companies, as well as all other companies in our country.
