About Serbia

GENERAL DATA

  • Location: Southeastern Europe, central part of the Western Balkans
  • Geographic coordinates: 44 00 N and 21 00 E
  • Territory: 88.499 km2
  • Population: 6.7 million (the data for AP Kosovo and Metohia excluded)*
  • Borders with: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia
  • Capital city: Belgrade, circa 1.7 million inhabitants
  • State organization: Parliamentary Republic
  • Official language: Serbian
  • National currency: Serbian Dinar RSD
  • Time zone: GMT+1
  • GDP (2023): €69.1 bn

FAVOURABLE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

  • Functional infrastructure – Transport, Energy, Telecommunications
  • World Bank – Doing Business 2020: 44 position
  • IBM Global Locations Trend 2017 : World leader by the number of new jobs created per capital
  • Low operating costs
    • The lowest cost of electricity and postal services in the region
    • Strongly motivated workforce
    • Competitive tax policy
  • Financial Times: The first out of 94 countries in the world by the greenfield
  • FDI performance Index.Credit ratings: Fitch: BB/ stable; Moody’s: Ba3/ stable; S&P: BB/ positive

ADVANTAGES OF INVESTING IN SERBIA

  • Favorable geographic position, owing to which any shipment can reach any location in Europe within 24 hours
  • Highly educated and competitive labor force
  • Restructured and stable financial system
  • Simple procedures for a company start–up and registration
  • Simple procedures for foreign trade transactions and foreign investments
  • State level incentives

FAVORABLE TAX REGIME

  • Tax rate on personal income of 10%
  • Corporate profit tax rate of 15%
  • VAT rate:
    – General – 20%
    – Special – 10%

FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS

Goods made in Serbia benefit from several Free Trade Agreements and Generalized System of Preferences which provide simplified placement on markets with more than 1.3 bn people.

  • Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU
  • CEFTA Agreement
  • Agreement with the EFTA members
  • Free trade agreement with the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan (EEU)
  • Free trade agreement with Turkey
  • Free trade agreement with UK
  • USA (GSP)
  • Japan (GSP)
  • Australia (GSP)

HIGHLY QUALIFIED WORKFORCE

  • University of Belgrade is ranked as one of Top 400 Universities (’’Shanghai’’ list)
  • Highly educated young workforce with around 50,000 university and college graduates, and 75,000
  • Import and export of goods and services without any quantitative restrictions