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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Ministry of Trade and Services prepares new laws

Belgrade, 10 September 2007

Serbian Minister of Trade and Services Predrag Bubalo said today that amendments to the Competition Law and the Consumer Protection Law are under preparation, since these are areas which hold priority in the action plan for Serbia’s entry into the EU.

Predrag Bubalo

At a press conference on occasion of 100 days of the government’s work, Bubalo said that other laws under preparation are the trade law, the bill on electronic trading, commodities exchange, commodity reserves, and the law on product safety.

He said that the Ministry of Trade and Services put emphasis on improving the services sector, which was not given adequate attention until now, and pointed to the fact that a big number of services are not envisaged by law, and services extended to users are not monitored.

Bubalo expressed expectation that the new trade law will be discussed by the Serbian government during the upcoming month, recalling that the previous law was adopted in 1996, and it needs to be modernised.

The Minister informed that the new members of the Council for Consumer Protection have been appointed, and they include experts in this area, representatives of consumers’ organisations and the ministry.

He added that the law on product safety should be in parliamentary procedure by December 20.

Bubalo explained that we must harmonise the functioning of the Serbian Directorate for Commodity Reserves with the EU directive according to which we must have a quarter of annual consumption of certain products in reserve.

According to Bubalo, currently Serbia fulfills this condition regarding certain products, and for others not. Even if we had enough funds to buy these products we do not have adequate storage facilities. This chiefly pertains to oil and oil derivates and the storage facilities which were destroyed in the 1999 bombardment.

The Minister said that a dynamic plan has been prepared for repair and restoration of storage facilities in Pozega, Smederevo and the Pancevo refinery.

He stressed that control of street selling is continuing, and specified that in the first 100 days of the government’s work goods worth several million dinars were confiscated. The Minister said that according to the new law it will be possible to give communal inspection widened jurisdiction.

Bubalo said that the ministry is working to improve market inspection, and stressed that software is being designed which will allow direct link with registered businesses.

This will allow monitoring at any given moment and access to databases showing which business entities have been monitored, explained Bubalo.

He said that he expects Serbia will sign a free trade agreement with Belarus by the end of the year. He said that in October the list of sensitive products will be determined between Serbia and Belarus, and soon talks on free trade will begin with Ukraine, Turkey and Kazakhstan.

At a session of the Intergovernmental Serbian Russian Committee agreement was reached regarding steps to be taken for liberalisation of goods on the goods list which are related to the free trade agreement with Russia, so that conditions are created for increased import of Serbian goods to the Russian market, explained Bubalo.

He reiterated that Serbia’s biggest problem is the trade deficit and confirmed that the government is examining the issue of encouraging exports.

According to Bubalo, several meetings have already been held and a number of measures are being finalised which the government will adopt in the upcoming period to encourage exports.

Bubalo added that the team entrusted with this task is being led by Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic, while the initiative for its formation was launched by the Ministry of Trade and Services.