European Union Information Point in Novi Sad and Vojvodina Chamber of Commerce organised a conference “Economic and structural reforms in Serbia in the light of Progress Report on Serbia.”
Freek Janmaat, Head of the European Integration Section of the EU Delegation to Serbia, opened the conference by briefly presenting the recently published EU’s Progress Report on Serbia, and stressed the importance of further progress in the fields of rule of law, public sector and administration reform.
Janmaat said that Serbia was already very competitive and integrated in the economy of European Union, given that 62 percent of Serbian exports were directed to EU Member States, whereas the share of direct foreign investments from EU to Serbia was 72 percent.
Provincial Secretary for inter-regional cooperation and local self-government Branislav Bugarski stressed that within the Progress Report on Serbia negotiating capacity and normalisation of relations with Kosovo were positively assessed.
“It was told in Brussels that, on the positive side, Serbia has strong capacity to conduct the negotiation process, but it has to make more effort in economic development and continue its work on implementing the principles of rule of law,” added Bugarski.
Economic analyst Dimitrije Boarov pointed to economic aspects of the Progress Report, the needed fiscal consolidation and privatisation of Serbian enterprises, whereas the President of Vojvodina Chamber of Commerce Ratko Filipovic discussed the state and competitiveness of Serbian economy on European market.
