Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said today at a regional conference "Digitization and Intellectual Property: An End or a New Beginning" that intellectual property is extremely important for economic development and that it represents everything the economies of the developed countries are based on.
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Intellectual property important for economic development
Banja Luka,
17 June 2019
At an event in Banja Luka, Brnabic recalled that Serbia opened Chapter 7 on intellectual property rights two years ago in negotiations with the EU, and is working to close this chapter.
Under Chapter 7, the Western Balkan countries that want to join the EU will have to introduce and adhere to new standards so that the Union is confident that their intellectual property will be protected against plagiarism and piracy, Brnabic said.
According to her, more work is needed to encourage investment in the creation of intellectual property.
That is very important for making a transformation from an economy based on labour-intensive investments to an economy based on knowledge and innovation that will lead us to a more competitive society where we will be able to develop together faster in the 21st century, Brnabic pointed out.
The Prime Minister stressed that Serbia is one of the most competitive countries in the field of taxation of intellectual property, since it introduced tax benefits at the beginning of the year and thus made a bold step.
For those who invest in knowledge, education, development and research and create intellectual property in Serbia, which is registered in our country, the tax on intellectual property income is only 3 percent, instead of 15 percent, which is the general tax rate, she underlined.
She said that today there is the interest of foreign companies to open patent offices, to invest in research and development, to register their copyright and intellectual property, because we are already competitive.
With this, Serbia will empower its people and the economy, and that will be the biggest transformation of society and economy, the Prime Minister underlined, pointing out that the Balkan countries do not deal enough with the theme of digitization and intellectual property, and they should, because progress in that area is necessary if we want to make progress.
Republika Srpska Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic said that intellectual property should be protected by law.
Industrial intellectual property is particularly important and we need to engage in addressing this issue. The economy cannot develop if we do not have developed intellectual property, Viskovic underlined.
According to him, small and medium enterprises from Bosnia-Herzegovina have no business in Europe if they do not solve this issue first.
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