The European Union is by far the largest and most important trade partner of Serbia. This is shown in an infographic released by the EU Delegation to Serbia on Friday, 11th of September 2020. 63% of Serbia’s overall trade in 2019 was done with the European Union.
The overall trade between the EU and Serbia amounted in 2019 to 24.9 billion Euros, more than 250% of what it used to be 10 years ago in 2009, when the Interim Stabilisation and Association Agreement started to be implemented.
In 2019 the imports from the EU to Serbia had a value of 13.6 billion Euros while the exports to the EU had a value of 11.3 billion Euros.
Russia and China rank respectively on second and third places but at considerably lower trade levels (respectively of 2.7billion and 2.4 billion) – ten times lower than trade between Serbia and the EU. This does not yet calculate in the fact that trade with the CEFTA region actually ranks on the second place but is not represented here in this graph.
Besides trade with the European Union, it is actually regional trade within the Western Balkans which provides the best market opportunity for Serbia’s economy: in 2019, exports of Serbian goods to Bosnia-Herzegovina amounted to 1.4 billion Euros, ahead of Russia with 0.83 billion Euros, North Macedonia with 0.67 billion Euros and China with 0.27 billion Euros.
“These figures show that good neighbourly relations, mutual understanding, abolishing of trade barriers and good cooperation is of utmost importance to Serbia and the process of EU integration lies in its own interest. The EU remains also not only Serbia’s most important trade partner but also its biggest donor and investor”, a statement of the EU delegation said.
Other economic data not shown here shows that Serbia has substantially benefited from trade and economic integration with the EU: the value of Serbian exports to the EU has more than tripled from nearly 3.4 billion Euros in 2009 to 11.3 billion Euros in 2019, making the EU an extraordinary factor for the economic development of Serbia. This is in particular true for agricultural products: Serbia exports more than 50% of its agricultural products to the EU, and benefits from a positive agricultural trade balance of 400 Million Euros with the EU.
