Year-on-year growth in industrial production in October was 0.5 percent, while exports in the same month were 9.1 percent higher than in October last year, said Ivan Nikolic, editor of Macroeconomic Analysis and Trends at the presentation of this publication.
October exports amounted to 1.6 billion euros, while year-on-year growth in imports was 0.7 percent or 2.1 billion euros.
Nikolic highlighted the growth of the manufacturing industry over the past four years, noting that, thanks to foreign direct investors, progress has been made in the technological level of the industry.
– The cumulative growth in the gross value added of the manufacturing industry, expressed in euros from 2015 to 2018, was 41 percent, which is likely to be the best result in Europe – said Nikolic.
He explains that the total contribution to the growth of value added in the low-tech industries from 2010 to 2015 was 33.9 percent, and in the high-tech industries only 0.7 percent, while in the 2016-2018 period, the contribution of low-tech industries branches growth fell to 19 percent and the contribution of high-tech sectors to 3.9 percent.
In the middle, the share of medium-low technology areas has increased significantly. However, low-value-added manufacturing industries still hold a large share of 38.6 percent.
According to Nikolic, in 2018 Serbia for the first time achieved a surplus in the exchange of products from the medium-low technology group.
Compared to 2015, the value of exports in this area increased by as much as 56.3 percent to reach 4.3 billion euros. The medium-high technology industry, which is primarily located in the production of motor vehicles and parts, generated a surplus of 509.6 million euros. Nikolic concludes that foreign direct investment was the main contributor to these results. He also points out that in recent years FDI has been moving more into high-tech than low-tech industries.
– Out of 603.5 million euros of total foreign ownership growth in 2016-2018, 212.6 million euros or 35.2 percent is located in areas belonging to high-tech enterprises. During this period, the growth of foreign capital in the low-tech segment amounted to 85.6 million euros. Serbia does not yet belong to the group of countries with sufficient capital and knowledge to accelerate its own technological breakthrough. Therefore, we are actually importing technology by attracting foreign investors. Despite numerous challenges, this process has obviously been successful in the previous period – Nikolic says for Danas.
