Last year, companies operating in Serbia took a little more than a billion euros to offshore zones. According to the data of the National Bank of Serbia, most of the money went to Hong Kong (806 million euros), followed by Singapore (170 million euros) and the British Virgin Islands (24 million euros).
Millions of euros were transferred to Lebanon and Liechtenstein at the same time, and the list of countries with whose systems Serbian companies cooperated includes Panama, the Marshall Islands, the Dominican Republic, the Seychelles…
Most of the payments were made by companies from the metal industry, 26 percent. Companies engaged in mining (13 percent), companies for the production of computers and peripherals (8 percent), for trade in household electrical appliances (9 percent) also brought money to the offshore zone, the National Bank of Serbia confirmed to “Blic Business”.
– The growth of payment transactions with Hong Kong in the last five years is largely the result of direct investments from this country in Serbian companies from the manufacturing and mining sectors – they reminded us in the central bank.
Numerous benefits for offshore companies
Professor of the Faculty of Economics in Belgrade, Ljubodrag Savic, says for “Blic Business” that the so-called tax havens are most often associated with some illegal transactions, money laundering or illegal activities, but that there are also companies that operate there regularly.
They choose to be headquartered in these countries because they have many benefits, such as lower taxes or lower commissions on transactions, for example, in Monaco, and that is completely in accordance with the regulations,” our interlocutor explained.
This is followed by the expert for foreign investments, Milan Kovacevic, who explains for “Blic Business” that Luxembourg, to which about 500 million euros were transferred from Serbia last year, has several specifics. First of all, he mentions the Law on Business Companies, but also a special Law on Holdings, which, as he says, “give a lot of interesting possibilities”.
“These laws, for example, provide good conditions for someone who has a larger group to establish a holding company there, and then have companies in other countries. Otherwise, there has been strong public pressure lately, so they are trying to find untaxed or dirty money internationally. Luxembourg has a lot of it in terms of quantity, then they must have started searching that country as well. But that country simply has certain benefits for the headquarters of companies,” our interlocutor points out.
He adds that even for a while, the main item in the budget of Luxembourg were taxes on banking and transfers, Blic reports.
