Additional American investors would be attracted to Serbia by the same conditions required by domestic businessmen – the rule of law and simpler regulations, it was assessed today in Belgrade at the panel “How to encourage American investments in Serbia?”.
The volume of investments of American companies in Serbia reached four billion dollars, when inflows from their European headquarters are included, but it can be higher, it was said at the meeting organized by the Nova Ekonomija with the support of the US Embassy.
The head of the economic department at the US Embassy in Belgrade, Beron Lobstein, said that the United States had radically changed its attitude towards Serbia in 20 years, that the previous goal of cooperation was stabilization and economic recovery, and that they were now actively working to improve the investment climate.
According to him, the volume of US investments in Serbia is significantly higher than 600 million dollars, according to official statistics.
“American companies invest through their European subsidiaries, so we use the figure of approximately four billion. These investments employ 20,000 citizens in Serbia. That cooperation is encouraging, but it can be much higher,” Lobstein said.
With the donations so far, the USA has mostly supported institution building and democratization in Serbia.
The President of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) Serbia, Zoran Petrovic, said that American companies did not limit themselves to initial investments, but that they constantly reinvested in their business.
“At first, these were manufacturing companies, such as the Ball Corporation and Philip Morris, but the focus of cooperation in the past few years has been most visible in the IT sector,” he said.
According to him, one of the main obstacles to deepening cooperation is the Law on Foreign Exchange Business, parts of which have their roots in communist Yugoslavia, due to which companies with American capital often, at least on paper, relocate their business.
He added that it is necessary to build better institutions and improve the rule of law, and that it is not only the growth of GDP that is most important, but the creation of an environment where growth will be continuous.
“American IT companies are increasingly buying domestic technology companies, which has a great global impact among investors, and gives credibility to the domestic scene,” said the director of the “Digital Serbia” Initiative, Nebojsa Djurdjevic.
Strategic Investment Advisor from the Government of Serbia, Nemanja Jevtovic, believes that this is the best period for investing in Serbia, which has retained the first place in Europe in terms of foreign direct investments, despite the recession caused by the pandemic.
He pointed out that the Government of Serbia now wants to focus on the development of high-tech branches, but also decentralization, in order for economic development to reach less developed municipalities.
E3 International Regional Program Manager Lena Bratic said she was pleased with the return of US energy investments to the Western Balkans.
“The US government is reactivating in the energy sphere, after a 17-year break in investments. Energy is also included in Serbia’s strategic documents, and the arrival of capital from some of the most important American companies can be expected after the arrival of DFC,” Bratic said, Nova Ekonomija reports.
