The total level of participation of investments in GDP must be 25 percent in order for the sustainable growth of the country to reach five percent, the executive director of the Council of Foreign Investors, Aleksandar Ljubičić, told Tanjug and pointed out that foreign investments in Serbia are stable and hover around six percent of GDP.
Ljubičić stated that state infrastructure investments range between six and seven percent of GDP, but that private investments – small and medium enterprises, which, he says, are the backbone of the economy – are of great importance for the country’s development.
“Domestic investments must be at the level of around 10 percent in order to have a stable development”, said Ljubičić.
He explained that private investment is important for large foreign companies because they represent our supply chain.
When asked whether an outflow of foreign investments from developing countries can be expected given the geopolitical situation, Ljubičić agreed that the world will not be the same after February 24, but that the forecasts of the Council for Foreign Investors, which, he recalled, recently in In Belgrade, he met with representatives of the IMF, that Serbia will not go into recession.
He said that the fact that Serbia’s economy is deeply integrated into the EU economy and faces the same challenges as member countries can be a problem for us.
“Serbian economy is deeply integrated in the EU and we have almost complete trade and placement with the EU, so those indicators that say that the economies of Germany and Italy will enter recession with some 0.3 percent, represent an alarm for us. We have to be in preparedness, because Serbia is not an isolated island and with those countries it has the greatest economic activity, so what happens in them is also reflected in Serbia”, warned Ljubičić.
When it comes to the demands that the Council of Foreign Investors has for the Government of Serbia in view of the energy and economic crisis, he points out that the professionalization and corporatization of public companies, primarily in the field of energy, has been one of the priority proposals for years.
He assessed as favorable the fact that the state is working on diversification of gas and finding new sources of supply. When asked what can be expected in Serbia in 2023 when it comes to foreign investors, Ljubičić emphasized that he sees no signs that a single foreign company will leave Serbia, and that, what’s more, many companies have reinvested.
“Our recommendation is for Serbia to speed up negotiations with the EU and to speed up the harmonization of legislation, because this will make it a safer place, and Serbia, in our opinion, is a great place to invest”, concluded Ljubičić, Euronews reports.
