EU companies are by far the biggest investors in Serbia

The European Union (EU) was Serbia’s largest trade partner from 2010 to 2021, according to the NBS and the Bureau of Statistics, and more than 63 percent of the total number of foreign direct investments in Serbia came from companies based in the EU, announced is Demostat today.

As stated, data from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the Statistical Office of Serbia on trade exchange with the EU show that Serbia’s total trade from 2010 to 2021 revolved around the EU, as the backbone of Serbian foreign trade exchange.

Thus, Serbia’s total trade with the EU in 2021 reached 30.28 billion euros, which is 23 percent more than in 2020.

It is also added that Serbia’s exports to the EU in 2021 set a new record when it comes to the total value of exports to the Union.

It was specified that in 2021, when the Serbian economy was facing the consequences of the first year of the corona virus pandemic, a total export of almost 14 billion euros was recorded, which surpassed the previous record in exports to the EU, from the pre-crisis year 2019, which amounted to 11.4 billion euros.

A significant increase in the coverage of imports from the EU was also recorded, so in 2021, 85 percent of Serbian imports of goods from the Union were covered by exports from Serbia to the EU.

Among the EU member states, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Romania stand out as particularly important trading partners of Serbia. Serbia exports most of its goods to these countries, while it imports most goods from Germany and Italy.

It is also recalled that during 2010, the EU was in convincing first place as the largest foreign trade partner of Serbia with almost 10 billion euros of exchange value.

In second place, but with a much smaller value, were the CEFTA countries with slightly more than two billion worth of foreign trade exchange, followed by Russia with slightly more than 1.6 billion euros.

China and the USA were on the fourth and fifth place respectively, followed by Turkey and Switzerland.

From 2011 to 2013, the ranking of the largest partner countries remained unchanged, with a significant increase in the value of foreign trade exchange with Russia and China, which still remained in third and fourth place respectively in terms of exchange value.

Demostat states that all this time the value of foreign trade exchange between Serbia and the EU has grown steadily and firmly remained in first place, reaching a value of over 17 billion euros in 2015.

This situation remained until 2020, when China moved Russia from its stable third place among Serbia’s largest foreign trade partners, and with a value of goods exchange of around three billion euros, it moved to third place.

Finally, in 2021, foreign trade exchange with the EU reached 30.28 billion euros, thus confirming its position as Serbia’s largest foreign trade partner.

After 11 years, the CEFTA countries remain Serbia’s second-ranked partner in terms of trade value, but in a volume that in 2021 was behind the first-ranked EU by more than 25 billion euros.

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