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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbia-Montenegro named Market of the Month to attract investors

Belgrade, 25 January 2006

Serbian Minister of Finance Mladjan Dinkic said today that the decision of the US Commercial Centre, a specialised agency of the US Department of Commerce, to declare Serbia-Montenegro Market of the Month is a genuine recommendation to American companies to invest in Serbia.

In a statement to the Tanjug news agency, Dinkic stressed that this is very positive news, because the US economy is the strongest in the world and the US Commercial Centre is the key institution in promoting American investments in third world markets.

According to Dinkic, this recognition is confirmation both to medium-sized and large US companies that investing in Serbia does pay off.

"This is not a coincidence because in the last two years the average rate of economic growth in Serbia has been around eight percent, and it is undoubtedly the greatest in the whole of southeast Europe and even in entire Europe", said Dinkic. He recalled that the Serbian government considerably improved the business climate in the country last year by adopting a number of important laws.

He also recalled that according to the report by the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Serbia-Montenegro topped the global rankings for most reforms enacted in 2005. This resulted in a record amount of foreign direct investment which totalled €1.5 billion, the US being the largest individual investor in the Serbian market.

Dinkic said he expects that this positive trend will continue this year and in the future, and that the good news will spur the Serbian government into improving the country's economic policy and enable the country to receive further recognition, thus providing more job opportunities and boosting the development of the country.

The main reasons given for the US Commercial Centre’s choice are Serbia-Montenegro's market size, accessibility to the southeast European free-trade market, the contract on free trade with Russia and customs-free imports for the greatest number of goods and services from the EU and US into Serbia-Montenegro. The US is most interested in exporting products from the sectors of computer technology, telecommunications, insurance, energy and agriculture, as well as airport and medical equipment.