For the first time, Serbian premier met with representatives of Nordic companies in Serbia on Monday in a bid to discuss business climate in the country and future economic cooperation. The meeting, organised by Nordic Business Alliance, also gathered other business people as well as representatives from the Nordic embassies in Serbia.
Founded as non-profit organisation in 2009, the Nordic Business Alliance aims to promote and strengthen the network and cooperation between Nordic companies and Serbia, as well as to contribute to the development of business relations and activities between the Nordic countries and Serbia. So far, the Alliance has 30 members, including some of the biggest Nordic companies like Telenor, Ikea, Securitas, Ericsson, Volvo.
The Alliance acknowledged Serbia’s progress, welcoming the country’s reforms on the EU path, economic reforms with dramatically reduced fiscal deficit and with unemployment rate below 17 per cent.
Therefore, it does not come as surprise that there is a growing interest of Nordic companies to invest in Serbia, as Swedish Ambassador, Mr Christer Asp said. ”We see this as a positive step forward in the consolidation of business relationships between the Nordic countries and Serbia,” Mr Asp said.
According to Vucic, Nordic companies are on the list of 15 biggest exporters in Serbia. “I believe that there will be more of them [Nordic companies], but we have to work on it,” Vucic said.
Foreign trade exchange between Serbia and the Nordic countries this year highly likely will be about 15% higher than back in 2014, when it amounted to EUR 384.6 million, the participants of the meeting concluded.
