Keepin touch

Whether you have a question, comment, suggestion or any problem in the purview of the government, send us your message and we will try to respond as soon as possible. If your problem is not in our purview, we will forward your message to the relevant institution.

The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Preparation of strategy for boosting foreign investment underway

Belgrade, 22 June 2005

In an interview for today's edition of Politika, Serbian Deputy Minister of International Economic Relations Vlatko Sekulovic announced the adoption of a strategy for boosting foreign investment and the holding of a tender for six concession arrangements.

Vlatko Sekulovic

The official website of the Serbian government brings excerpts from the interview:

Strategy for boosting foreign investment:

- Following the adoption of the Action plan for eliminating administrative obstacles to foreign investment, which will be updated in line with results achieved in the past year and included in the strategy, during the preparation of the strategy we have paid special attention to eliminating problems arising from complicated procedures and sluggishness of the administration. That is why we decided to introduce the one-stop-shop system. That service would be located at the Ministry or the Agency for Foreign Investment: an investor would arrive there, explain his idea, obtain all necessary information and submit the request for an operation. Then, the trained stuff would obtain all necessary permits and documentation on the investor's behalf, or offer him assistance.

Realisation of pilot industrial parks that should be located near large industrial systems in Beocin, Smederevo and Vranje:

- The experience of countries in transition and developed countries shows that it is good to place industrial parks near large industrial systems. There are also the so-called strategic industrial parks, which are realised in direct negotiations between the state and big investors, like in Slovakia, which successfully implemented those projects in cooperation with big companies such as Peugeot and Kia, which invested in its car industry. The system is based on attracting investors by offering them locations equipped with necessary infrastructure free of charge, various subsidies and tax reliefs. Also, the possibility of exempting those who work in free trade zones from paying the value added tax, apart from other tax reliefs, is being considered.

Cooperation with local self-governments on following projects:

- By putting this idea into action, we aim to encourage initiative in municipalities, the spirit of entrepreneurship among municipal leaders and the sense of responsibility for the development of local economies. We also want to make them realise that their main budget trump card should not be an one-off collection of charges for building land, but revenues collected from taxpayers -companies that are doing business on the territory of those municipalities and their employees.

The first analyses of the proposed regulations will be done through a dialogue with the local self-government and in cooperation with the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities.

Tenders for six concessions:

- In this year’s Serbian investment offer there will also be six concession arrangements. After obtaining parliament's approval, we expect to announce tenders in cooperation with and technical assistance from the IMF. The tenders will concern Horgos-Pozega and Nis-Dimitrovgrad roads. All those interested in concessions in mining can expect four tenders in autumn, which will be preceded by adoption of amendments to the basic law. In cooperation with the World Bank, we are preparing documentation and announcement of a tender for three concessions on the Crni Vrh location - for research and exploitation of the copper ore, gold ore and other metals, and on the Jaran Dol location for research and exploitation of the borate ore.