On 29 October 2013, an Investment forum Serbia Investment Day was held in London in which a large number of British business people took part as well as representatives from British and other foreign companies with offices in London, including banks and investment funds (Barclay’s Bank, Jefferise Bank, LLB Investment Group, JP Morgan, Mineco, Green House Capital, T. Rowe Price Fund, etc.). A number of Serbian companies also participated in this event.

The Investment Forum was opened by Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Ivica Dacic. He emphasized that Serbia was committed to growth and development. He pointed to several key facts why Serbia was an attractive investment destination: the opening of EU membership negotiations, free-trade agreement with EU, CEFTA, Russian Federation, Turkey, etc. enabling good manufactured in Serbia access to a 700 million consumer market. He also stated that Serbia offered non-refundable funds for each newly created job. He called upon British companies to invest in Serbia explaining that we seek projects and investments to bring growth to us and profit to them.

The Minister of Economy of the Republic of Serbia, Sasa Radulovic then addressed the audience. He explained that Serbia has undertaken a major turnaround in an effort to jump start economy. He referred to some of the problems that Serbia has been faced with, like huge unemployment rate, privatization that fell short of expectations, including state and public enterprises that are draining the budget but lacking proper management. He informed the guests of the changes in legislation in the field of labor laws, ownership, privatization, banks, etc. He explained the intention of the Government of Serbia to introduce transparency in economy and underlined that the state was no longer in a position to spend millions buying social peace by protecting state and public enterprises by subsidies. Currently quite the opposite is the case – se want to diminish state sector and increase the private one.

Minister of Finance of the Republic of Serbia Lazar Krstic suggested that it was best for investors to speak well of Serbia from their own good experience. He said that huge changes in economy and finance have been presented this year and that those have received an overwhelming support of the entire Government and the opposition which came to realize that there was no alternative to the proposed measures. He said that Serbia has been working out its budget and fiscal strategy and that balancing the budget would remain the priority in the coming years. He explained that we lacked maneuvering space and that it takes tame to introduce reforms in the health, education and tax sectors. He underlined that he saw no reason why Serbia could not become the next “silicone valley” and that Serbia had the capacity for that especially in terms of educated labor force.

The conference continued its work through panel discussions.