Since February, Russians have set up around 800 companies and 2.100 entrepreneurial trades in Serbia

Russian citizens have established 789 companies and 2.134 entrepreneurial trades in Serbia as of 24 February, said Milan Lucic, Director of the Agency for Economic Registers.

Russian citizens are currently the second largest number of registered companies in Serbia, while Chinese citizens remain in first place, Lučić said, adding that Italians, Croats and Slovenes are among the top ten, while Americans are in tenth place.

He points out that most of the companies of Russian nationals are engaged in IT activities.

“Computer programming is the top activity, followed by management and business-related consultancy, as well as IT-related consultancy, followed by non-specialised wholesale trade and

Foreigners doing business in Serbia are subject to exactly the same conditions as domestic companies, so Lučić notes that all tax rules are the same, except that there are privileges for “premium class” companies employing top professionals, which were imposed by the state last year.

Lucic states that the predominance of IT activity among the newly opened companies of newly-arrived Russian citizens will significantly increase Serbia’s competitiveness in all markets where it will operate.

“I am looking forward to this, because this is the future.” When there is public speculation that a Russian company has withdrawn 1000 senior programmers and if we follow the saga of the Twitter takeover and Elon Musk transferring only 80 programmers from Tesla to Twitter to make a difference, then imagine how big a difference it makes for the 1000 or so people who come to our country,” said Lucic./N1