The May 2026 visit to Beijing created a new industrial-policy question for Serbia: can Chinese cooperation move from imports and infrastructure into high-tech production and technology transfer? MAT reports signed investment agreements worth €953mn across robotics, automotive, electric-vehicle components, lighting systems, turbochargers, aluminium battery housings, artificial intelligence and innovation.
This is potentially important because Serbia’s relationship with China has often been defined by infrastructure finance, construction, mining, steel and imports of manufactured goods. A shift toward joint production and high-tech components would represent a different phase. It could help Serbia move from being a market for Chinese equipment toward becoming a production platform linked to Chinese technology and European demand.
The strongest opportunities are in automotive components, EV supply chains, aluminium battery housings, electronics and industrial automation. These areas connect with Serbia’s existing manufacturing base and with the new Kragujevac automotive cycle. They also fit European demand for nearshoring and diversified supply chains.
But technology transfer does not happen automatically. Foreign investment can create jobs and exports without building domestic technological capacity. Serbia must ensure that projects include local suppliers, engineering roles, training, research links, university cooperation, domestic procurement and export integration. Otherwise, high-tech investments can remain assembly operations with imported know-how.
Artificial intelligence and innovation agreements should be treated with equal caution. Serbia has real IT talent, but industrial AI requires data infrastructure, skilled engineers, applied manufacturing use cases and corporate adoption. The value lies not in branding projects as AI, but in applying automation, analytics and digital control to factories, energy systems, logistics and compliance.
The €953mn package creates an opportunity. The policy test is whether Serbia can structure these investments to raise domestic value added. Chinese capital can support industrial upgrading only when Serbia negotiates and manages it as technology partnership, not just as another inflow of equipment and construction.
