Big Czech firm coming to Serbia, "negotiations have been ongoing for a long time"

Trade between Serbia and the Czech Republic has grown by more than 70 percent since 2014 and exceeded one billion euros last year, Serbian Chamber of Commerce President Marko Cadez said today, adding that negotiations have been ongoing for a long time about the arrival to the Serbian market of a big Czech company, Rockaway, whose business is in the realm of digital services.

At the opening of the Serbia-Czech Business Forum, which was attended by the presidents of the two countries, Aleksandar Vucic and Milos Zeman, Cadez said there was a lot of interest from Czech companies in the field of digitization, and that today's gathering might be an opportunity to close the first big deals.

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Cadez says that over the last five years, Serbian companies have doubled their exports to the Czech Republic. He spoke at the Business Forum attended by about 100 representatives of Serbian companies.

"A special quality of our cooperation derives from the interest of Czech companies to make significant investments in Serbia during the last year or two," said Cadez.

He cited a Czech company's investment in Telenor, which Cadez says has chosen Serbia out of all of Europe to develop and deploy 5G technology at the Science and Technology Park in Belgrade.

He expressed his satisfaction that there were good companies from Serbia present at the Business Forum, including one third of the manufacturing industry, as well as large systems such as Railways, river shipping, EPS, and large private companies like Eliskir and Vital.

He recalled that a fantastic deal was recently signed between Serbia's My Brands and the company Mattoni from the Czech Republic, the main partner of PepsiCo, which took over Knjaz Milos.

"Serbia can offer the best products and a growing IT industry for digital agriculture, e-health and industrial and energy systems management. Some of these companies are with us today," said Chadez.

Photo: Promo

Cadez added that both Czech and Serbian businessmen can count on the support of the Chamber in their daily operations.

President of the Czech Chamber of Commerce Vladimir Dlouhy said that 50 Czech businessmen showed an interest in coming to Serbia and stressed that he cannot recall this level of interest in Serbia over the last 30 years.

He stated that the results of a survey conducted by the Czech Chamber of Commerce showed that Czech businessmen believe Serbia will be the next country to join the EU and emphasized the good economic, cultural and friendly relations between the two countries.

"The Czech Republic is in a relatively solid period and the growth of the Czech economy is far greater than in the Eurozone. We have economic stability, GDP growth, our budgets have a surplus, we have the lowest unemployment among the OECD countries," said Dlouhy.

He said that Serbia's macroeconomic results, relative to 2009 and 2010 show a decline of public debt and GDP growth, and that macroeconomic stability has been achieved in Serbia.

Dlouhy added that the delegation of businessmen includes investors such as the Czech investor in Telenor, and other companies such as Mattoni, but also those from the field of mechanical engineering, pharmacy, and the food industry.

"I can say that Serbia has something to offer the Czech Republic when it comes to manufacturing tires, aluminum, and copper. Water management, energy and health are areas where collaboration is possible. We see a perspective in agriculture as well," said the president of the Czech Chamber of Commerce.

He said that Czech businessmen see great potential in mutual investment and economic relations and thanked the Serbian Chamber of Commerce for the great help in organizing today's Business Forum, as well as the embassies of the two countries in Serbia and in the Czech Republic.

(Telegraf Biznis/Tanjug)