Serbia can expect less foreign investment by the end of 2012 than last year, and if nothing significant changes, the inflow of foreign capital will remain at around one billion euros in 2013.
This is the assessment of officials from the Agency for Foreign Investments and Export Promotion (SIEPA). At a conference on investments in Serbia, SIEPA Deputy Director Bojan Janković emphasized that Serbia can count on a total of one billion to 1.2 billion euros by the end of this year, and that improvement next year is possible if Serbia achieves the necessary investments in energy, telecommunications, and infrastructure.
– Foreign investments in the first six months of this year were around 600 million dollars, and this decrease is partly due to the electoral process in Serbia in the first half of this year, but also the economic crisis that has affected the European Union, given that the EU is Serbia’s largest trading and economic partner – commented Janković. He assessed it as logical that the effects of dissatisfaction and the crisis from the EU spilled over to the Serbian market, and stated that there is still interest from foreign investors.
– If we want to achieve the planned level of investments of around two to two and a half billion euros in 2013, it is necessary to reconsider all possibilities for investments – emphasized Janković.
Serbia has so far, he recalled, had competitive advantages for foreign investments in the form of various incentives, but recently many neighboring countries are offering even more attractive incentives than Serbia, which can only have an additional negative impact on investment in Serbia.
