Serbia’s high-tech trade data show both progress and the size of the remaining gap. According to MAT’s Eurostat-based calculation, total high-tech trade rose from €1.243bn in 2013 to €5.538bn in 2025, an increase of 345%. High-tech exports rose much faster, from about €220mn to €1.437bn, a gain of 553%. That is a meaningful improvement and evidence that Serbia has developed real high-tech export capacity over the past decade.
But imports remain far larger. High-tech imports reached €4.100bn in 2025, almost three times the value of high-tech exports. The sectoral table shows particularly large import categories in electronics and telecommunications at €1.423bn, pharmaceuticals at €671mn, aerospace at €592.5mn, scientific instruments at €484.7mn, and computers and office machines at €332.1mn.
The export structure is encouraging but uneven. Aerospace and space industry exports rose from €10.9mn in 2013 to €441.5mn in 2025, becoming the most dynamic high-tech export category. Electronics and telecommunications exports reached €381.4mn, non-electrical machinery €226.3mn, scientific instruments €115.2mn, and electrical machinery €77.3mn. MAT also highlights spectacular product-level increases, including gas-turbine parts, electronic integrated circuits, panels and aircraft engines.
The problem is that Serbia’s high-tech share of total exports remains modest. MAT notes that the share rose from 2.1% in 2013 to 5.0% in 2024, before easing to 4.6% in 2025, partly because of a drop in arms exports from €96.7mn to €45.1mn. For a country trying to move into higher-value industrial positioning, the share needs to rise materially over the next five years.
China is the central imbalance. Serbia’s high-tech exports to China were only €17mn in 2025, compared with €1.34bnof imports. That gap reflects Serbia’s role as a buyer of Chinese telecom equipment, computers, instruments and semiconductor-related products, rather than a supplier of complex technology back to the Chinese market.
The projection is that Serbia’s high-tech exports can continue rising in 2026–2027, but the trade deficit will remain large. The newly announced Chinese investment package of €953mn can lift export capacity over time, especially in EV components, robotics and automotive technologies, but it will also require imported machinery and intermediate goods during the build-out phase. That means the high-tech import bill may rise before the export payoff appears.
The base case is a gradual increase in Serbia’s high-tech export share toward 5–6% of total exports by 2027, assuming automotive and component investments proceed. The upside case would push the share higher if EV components, aerospace parts and electronics scale faster. The downside case is continued import dependence, where high-tech trade grows but the deficit remains structurally wide.
Serbia’s high-tech challenge is not the absence of progress. The challenge is scale. The country has built export niches, but it has not yet built a broad high-tech production base. The next phase must turn isolated success categories into a deeper industrial ecosystem.
