Your Excellency, Israeli investors are present in Serbia for a long time. To what extent have the information and activities of NALED contributed to growth of their investments especially in economically underdeveloped municipalities in Serbia?
Main Israeli investors came following the democratic changes in 2000. The level of overall investments reached round 1 billion EUR over the years and is mainly focused in real estate sector which made us the top investor in the very area in Serbia. Besides, there are Serbian companies representing Israeli IT companies, agriculture technology as well as apparel and jewelry. However, we have few investments in manufacturing such as Strauss Adriatic acquisition of Doncafe and Foundry of Precise Castings – LPO Ada in ownership of Bet Shemesh Engines.
Naled's contribution to cutting red tape and improving business environment through Business Friendly certification enjoys high respect from our side. For instance, real estate investors immediately felt the benefits of E-construction permitting system Naled has implemented together with the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure. We do notice trend of expansion in developing retail parks outside of Belgrade in cities like: Zrenjanin, Kragujevac, Pozarevac and other which is a good sign for more balanced urban development.
However, the gap between the current trade balance and potential is huge, so we plan to put more efforts in organizing special missions and delegations of businesses and we see Naled as valuable partner in these initiatives.
In the years ahead, we hope to see the level of bilateral trade growing as well as investments in IT sector and agriculture.
How would you evaluate Embassy's cooperation with this organization?
I'm very proud of the fact that the Embassy and Naled joined hands from the establishment of the organization. We took active part in most of the Naled's initiatives such as the Ambassadorial team's initiative dedicated to promoting of investment potentials of certain municipalities. Together with Tigar from Pirot and Subotica's city administration we put effort in drawing investors attention to the City. We appreciate very much Naled's support in distributing invitation to different courses we provide such as in: agriculture, women empowerment, entrepreneurship and innovation, clean tech. Naled is the key point in making sure information on the course reaches every municipality in Serbia. We're looking forward to joint projects and activities and will continue to be Naled's partner in the future.