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

Speedier privatisation to encourage prospective investors

Belgrade, 31 January 2005

Speaking about the first one hundred days of his term in office, Serbian Minister of International Economic Relations Milan Parivodic gave an interview to Politika daily about investment expectations for 2005, reduction in public expenditures and the textile agreement with the European Union. The official web site of the Serbian government brings excerpts from the interview.

Milan Parivodic

Privatisation:

- Privatisation is the best response to our economic problems. But not any sort of privatisation, only an urgent and quick one. I think that it is more important to sell a company as soon as possible than lose time negotiating its price.

Denationalisation:

- No country that legalises theft will be taken seriously. I am aware that our state is not in a position to return everything that was confiscated, but it can provide some kind of satisfaction. Romanians did so. For example, they decided to return five apartments per owner at most, and accomplished what they decided. Our citizens who bought up apartments during the 1990s have no reason to fear denationalisation. Their property is protected.

Investment expectations for 2005:

- The state will pull in several millions of dollars in revenues in the next few months from two or three transactions in the banking sector and from the sale of companies through tenders late in the year.

Investment:

- In addition to removing obstacles defined in the Action Plan in May last year in the administrative, legal and court systems and problems related to land ownership which hinder the investment the most, it is necessary to establish new mechanisms for encouraging and attracting foreign investors. Our competitors from neighbouring countries already did that. Since tax reliefs are insufficient, Serbia is preparing additional "specialties" for investors. The first is the introduction of a one-stop-shop counter that will be used only for investors, with the aim of reducing the red tape. The second is a project of industrial parks (regulated by a special law) based on the experiences of Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania.

Green light for the feasibility study by the end of the March:

- At last week's Permanent Improved Dialogue it was confirmed that we fulfilled all conditions set by the European partnership in the field of a market economy system. Only certain issues related to quality infrastructure have remained open.

Textile agreement to become effective in June:

- After the agreement has been confirmed in the EU and signed in late March (as it is expected), the Serbia-Montenegrin parliament should ratify it and inform the EU of such. It is realistic to expect that to take place in April. The agreement shall become effective two months after the parliament has informed the EU of its ratification.