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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Beginning of realisation of two new investment programmes

Belgrade, 7 December 2006

Director of the Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) Jasna Matic announced today the beginning of realisation of two new components of the Serbian Investment Promotion Programme (SIPP) - the pilot programme of development of industrial zones and technological parks and the Programme of support and accreditation of SIEPA's local partners.

Author: Fonet

Matic said at a press conference that SIPP is financed by the EU through the European Agency for Reconstruction (EAR) and implemented by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), as a member of the World Bank.

She pointed out that the Pilot programme of development of industrial zones and technological parks aims to improve the availability of land equipped with infrastructure for production and distribution activities, as well as the availability of modern office space for regional centres and suppliers of internationally exchangeable services.

EAR Head of operations in Serbia Christos Gofas said that land availability is currently one of the weakest points of Serbia as an investment location and specified that the reasons for that are inadequate property-rights relations, outdated urban plans and complicated procedures for use of land and the change of its purpose.

He stated that as part of this programme a fund for regional land development will be formed that will provide assistance to owners and managers of industrial and technological parks who offer land equipped with appropriate infrastructure to potential investors.

According to him, this fund will manage the plan for allocation of non-repayable funds, but it will also organise a database of available locations.

Foreign Investments Advisor at MIGA Matej Kovac said that the value of the Pilot programme of development of industrial zones and technological parks is €800,000, while €100,000 have been set aside for the Programme of support and accreditation of local partners.

Kovac explained that the main purpose of the Programme of support and accreditation of local partners is the improvement of capacities of the municipalities and organisations that mediate in the process of attracting investments into Serbia, so that they could adequately foresee the needs of investors and respond to them.

He said that can be achieved through building an equal partnership relation between local partners and SIEPA, in which everyone, within their own field of competence, will offer information, services and advice, both to foreign investors and to each other.

According to him, the presentation of that programme and the holding of 17 roundtables across Serbia are planned for this month, the training of local partners should be held from June to September 2007, while the signing of the Agreement on cooperation between SIEPA and local partners is expected to take place by the end of 2007.