EU requires fewer charges to business people in Serbia and sector approach to preparation of new industrial strategy

Representatives of the European Commission arrived to Belgrade on March 28. They are supposed to define, together with representatives of the Ministry of Economy and the Serbian authorities, the conditions for closing Chapter 20 (Enterprise & Industrial Policy), Blic learns.

As there are no formal requests within the chapter, their suggestion will be to prepare an industrial strategy in sectors, instead of the all-encompassing approach which has been implemented so far. In other words, in defining the policies and the support to the development of the economy, the Government will have to define separate measures for four sectors, namely, food, rubber and plastic, the metal-mechanical industry and wood processing.

As the Blic source from the Government explains, it is not certain whether the IT sector will be treated as separate or be integrated in the other four.

– In 2016, the Ministry of Economy started carrying out preparations to the end of bringing these fields in line with EU standards, where potentials are defined through sectors. Based on the defined methodology, four sectors have been defined for which strategies will be prepared in 2017. This means that the current industry development strategy of Serbia for the 2011-2020 period will have to be amended in order to set the sector priorities straight and define measures to support them. Furthermore, the EC will also require fewer charges to business people, of which there are 385, so that the expenditures would be brought down from the current EUR 20 million to EUR 18 million by 2020 – the Blic source says.

The Government declined to comment on the Blic findings.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION Bruxelles

Vlada Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo privrede Republike Srbije

European Commission

EC

Government of Serbia

Ministry of Economy

Chapter 20

chapter on enterprise and industrial policy

industrial policy

industrial strategy

industrial strategy Serbia

food industry

rubber and plastic industry

metal mechanical industry

wood processing industry

rubber industry

plastic industry

metal industry

mechanical industry

IT sector

EU standards

accession to EU

EU chapters

industry Serbia

charges to business people

taxes

reducing taxes

reducing charges to business people

sector preparation of industrial strategy