Serbia plans to restore trade turnover with Russia to a record level of $4.3 billion a year, Nenad Popovic, the minister without portfolio in the Serbian government in charge of international economic cooperation, told RIA Novosti.
Popovic is co-chair of the intergovernmental conference on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation between Serbia and the Russian Federation, and the 20th anniversary session of the conference is scheduled for 20-21 November in St Petersburg.
“The 70-member Serbian delegation going to St. Petersburg shows an openness and desire for cooperation. Serbia has not and will never impose sanctions against the Russian Federation. We want to cooperate as much as possible and this is an opportunity to once again use the exclusive mechanism of the IGC to get both sides to cooperate as actively as possible to reach the historical maximum of 2022, when our trade was $4.3 billion, and we will strive for this in the coming period,” he said. The Serbian minister expressed his pleasure that the IGC meeting would be held “for the first time in three years”.
According to Popovic, in addition to the traditional topics of energy, gas supply, oil refining and electricity, they will also discuss cooperation between Russian and Serbian companies on joint projects in Serbia and Russia.
“The issue of agriculture and food is always one of the priorities of our cooperation, and many small and medium-sized enterprises, which are extremely active in agriculture, are involved in this.
Another sector where we expect growth in the coming years is new technologies, innovation, digitalisation, AI, where outstanding Serbian and Russian engineers, IT experts can make a significant contribution. Also in the field of mechanical engineering, machine tools. Healthcare is also a priority for all of us,” said the Serbian government member.
The Co-Chair of the Intergovernmental Conference of the Russian Federation, Minister of Economic Development Maksim Reshetnikov, it will be recalled, was on a working visit to Serbia at the end of October.
After talks with the country’s leadership, he said that Russia would develop cooperation with Serbia in the fields of IT, pharmacology, smart city systems, transport and logistics in order to increase trade.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen cancelled a meeting with the Serbian Prime Minister in Belgrade due to Reshetnikov’s meeting with Milos Vucevic.
In February 2022, Reshetnikov was placed on the EU sanctions list for being “responsible for providing financial and material support and benefits to Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea or the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine”.
He was sanctioned by the United Kingdom in March, by New Zealand in April and by the US Treasury Department in June 2022 as a member of the Russian Government under Executive Order 14024.
Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic said after talks with Reshetnikov that the Belgrade official was ready to discuss the extension of the gas supply agreement, which expires in March 2025.
Minister Popovic further stated that Serbia is entering the coming winter with the best price for gas from Russia and a new gas supply contract is expected in spring 2025.
Russia’s Gazprom remains Serbia’s main gas supplier. Following the recent talks between the President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, on 20 October, additional volumes of natural gas from the Russian Federation are available to Serbia as of Sunday, 3 November.
The next multi-year gas supply agreement with the Russian Federation is due for renewal in spring 2025.
The free trade agreement between the Russian Federation and Serbia has been in force since 2000, RIA Novosti recalls.
According to data from the Republican Statistical Office of Serbia for 2023, the volume of Serbian exports to the Russian Federation did not change much compared to 2022, amounting to just over $1.194 billion. However, imports from the Russian Federation to Serbia in 2023 decreased percentage-wise from $3.083 billion to $1.725 billion, from 7.5 per cent to 4.3 per cent of total imports, compared to 2022./The Geopost/
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