BELGRADE, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Officials and businesspersons of Serbia and Belarus started a business council here on Tuesday, seeking ways to boost their bilateral cooperation in both economy and trade.
At the opening of Serbia-Belarus business council, Serbian Minister of Economy Goran Knezevic said Serbia is open to unite powers with Belarus in order to conquer new markets.
The ninth Business Council for Serbia-Belarus cooperation that started here gathered 50 Serbian and 20 Belarus companies, and was co-chaired by Knezevic and Belarus Minister of Trade Vladimir Koltovich.
Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated in a press release that participants agreed with the announced increase in the value of trade between two countries to 500 million U.S. dollars by 2019, as well as the advancement in bilateral cooperation by realization of joint investment projects, cooperation and business agreements and joint participation at markets of other countries.
Opening the council, Knezevic invited businessmen from Belarus to invest in Serbia, reminding them that the country has 160 companies prepared for different models of privatization.
According to the press release of the Chamber of Commerce, Knezevic stressed good macroeconomic indicators of Serbia such as growth of gross domestic product (GDP), investments, stable finances, decrease in unemployment and grey economy, and said that investors in Serbia get financial and nonfinancial incentives to invest in new production capacities and expand their business.
Koltovich told participants that Belarus is the 37th out of 190 countries and regions when it comes to conditions for doing business, and among the top 10 when it comes to reforming conditions for business.
He stressed that Belarus economy is open to Serbian investments, and joint production and invited business people of the two countries to use mechanisms for cooperation and promised that they can count on support of governments of two countries.
Serbian Chamber of Commerce stated that there are great opportunities for cooperation in areas of construction, wood and furniture industry, agriculture, automobile industry, information technologies, pharmaceutical industry and tourism that could contribute to further liberalization of trade with Belarus and the Eurasian Economic Union.
The event took place before the Intergovernmental Commission for Cooperation of Serbia and Belarus scheduled for Wednesday.
In the same day, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic met Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Oleg Kravchenko and talked about bilateral relations of the two countries.
The two diplomats agreed at the meeting that the current relations between the two countries are very good and that they can be further improved and advanced.
"At the meeting, two sides agreed that maintaining continuity of high level dialogue is very important for keeping traditionally good bilateral relations between two countries," Serbian foreign ministry concluded in a press release.
