The Council of Foreign Investors (FIC) presented today the “White Book 2023”, which contains 397 recommendations for improving the business and investment climate in Serbia, including organizing timely public discussions on all new regulations with regular dialogue with the business community. FIC notes in this year’s edition of the “White Book” that significant progress has been achieved in eight percent of areas, and some progress in 20 percent. Significant progress has been achieved in the area of taxes, customs, fiscalization and e-Invoicing, work – in total, and the work of foreigners.
The Foreign Investors Council (FIC) is aware of the challenges that Serbia faces due to economic and geopolitical conditions, but there are things that can be done regardless of the circumstances, stated today the chairman of the FIC Board of Directors, Mike Michel.
Mike Michel on the White Book
At the presentation of the 21st “White Book”, a publication that presents a comprehensive picture of the business and investment climate in Serbia with recommendations for its improvement, he said that FIC remains a reliable partner to the Government of Serbia and is ready to make a full contribution through a joint body – the Working Group for the implementation of the recommendations from the White Book.
“As many as 122 foreign companies from all over the world, which invest 44 billion euros and employ more than 115,000 people, have prepared concrete recommendations on how to improve the business and investment climate,” said Michel.
This year’s edition of “White Book 2023” consists of 58 articles with 397 recommendations prepared by 59 authors.
Director of the Council of Foreign Investors (FIC), Aleksandar Ljubić, said today, presenting the White Book 2023, that a higher progress index was created this year and that it amounted to 1.36. As he stated, there was good progress in 29 recommendations, some progress in 78 recommendations, and no progress in 276 recommendations.
“It is important for us to achieve the goal of 50 percent of the recommendations being fulfilled, and we were closest to that in 2019, when 40 percent of the recommendations were adopted,” said Ljubić.
He pointed out that the greatest performance was made in the energy sector, fiscalization, customs, employment of foreigners and consumer protection. Speaking about investments, Ljubić pointed out that it is necessary to ensure that the share of investments in GDP is 25 percent in order to achieve growth of five percent, so that, when it comes to Serbia, it is necessary for domestic investors to reach an investment of 10 percent of GDP – a. He stated that 60 percent of investments in Serbia come from the European Union and that it is possible to increase investments from the EU.
“Last year, Serbia had 4.4 billion euros in direct foreign investments, and the data for this year are also good and show that in 10 months there were 3.4 billion euros of investments,” said Ljubić. When it comes to suggestions for negotiations with the EU, he pointed out that it is necessary to harmonize domestic regulations with standards. “It is also necessary for inflation to return to the intended target framework, to optimize fiscal burdens, reduce public expenditures and improve the operations of public companies,” said Ljubić.
