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Foreign investors satisfied with progress of Serbia's economy

Xinhua, November 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

Serbia's Foreign Investors Council made a positive assessment of the country's progress in the past year, but suggested the government speed up structural reforms, according to the annual "White Book" published Monday.

The 2015 edition of the "White Book", which contains proposals on how to improve the business environment in the country, was presented here before Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and ministers, as well as members of the Foreign Investors Council, including its president Ove Freidheim.

Vucic said Serbia grew into a regional leader in attracting investments and reminded it had progressed 32 places in the World Bank rankings.

"There is not enough investment here, but there is a lot more of them than anywhere else (in the region), and there will be even more," he promised, adding that Serbia had created a good business environment and gave incentives to attract business people.

Vucic stressed that the government was successful in conducting economic reforms that resulted in a three times smaller deficit than envisaged by Serbia's arrangement with International Monetary Fund.

The Foreign Investors Council in Serbia draws more than 130 companies who invested more than 23.5 billion euros combined in the country and employ around 97,000 people.

Fredheim, for his part, said Serbia had implemented around 40 percent of the recommendations from the 2014 edition of the "White Book", and that it had shown a strong dedication to conducting reforms.

He stressed that significant progress had been made compared to last year in areas of real estate and construction, inspection, transport, intellectual property, as well as telecommunications, insurance, private security, and oil and gas.

Estimating that early signs of recovery of Serbia's economy were visible, Fredheim said he hoped the trend would continue, especially in areas such as tax collection, foreign currency transactions, food, agriculture and other areas where significant progress had not been observed.

He said the Foreign Investors Council expected Serbia to speed up structural reforms, secure better implementation of laws, and harmonize them with EU legislation. Endit