National Assembly Speaker Ana Brnabic Meets with German Businessmen in Berlin

Brnabic presented Serbia's economic indicators and its cooperation with German companies, adding that she would like to hear from the Germans how their two big projects related to the exploitation of lithium - Vulcan and Zinnwald - are progressing. "Like Germany, we have lithium reserves. Germany is much smarter than Serbia and Germany will be the country that will produce lithium," said the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. She said she wanted to see from the Germans how they accomplished this in accordance with the highest standards of environmental protection. Brnabic said that the Serbian economy has also recorded fantastic success in the last 11 years and that one of the reasons is the excellent cooperation with German companies. She emphasised that in the first quarter of 2024, Serbia recorded the best GDP growth in all of Europe, adding that the GDP growth was 4.7%, which is the best result in Europe. According to her, Serbia's GDP has more than doubled in the last 11 years and our unemployment rate has decreased from 26% in 2012 to 9% in 2023. "We were among the only 10 countries around the world that recorded an increase in employment even during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Brnabic. As she pointed out, every year, except in 2020 with its corona virus pandemic, Serbia has recorded an increasing number of direct foreign investments since 2012. She stressed that in 2023 that amounted to 4.5 billion euros. Brnabic says that by June of this year, compared to 2023, the amount of direct foreign investments was 9.6% higher. "Germany is our most important trade partner. In 2023, we had more than nine billion euros in trade between Germany and Serbia. If we look at the total number of exchanges of goods and services, it will exceed 11 billion euros in 2023. Germany is the largest foreign employer in Serbia. German companies currently employ over 80,000 people in Serbia," said Brnabic.

Speaking about the future of Serbian economy, she said that it lies with high-tech and modern technologies, recalling that Serbia introduced programming as a compulsory subject in primary schools. According to her, ICT has become the fastest growing sector of the Serbian economy. "We have attracted the research and development departments of companies such as the German Continental or the American Microsoft, and Serbia is now, in my opinion, the centre for new technologies in Central and Southeastern Europe," Brnabic pointed out. She invited other German companies to come and follow the example of Continental, which built a research centre and then expanded production. "The third one is biotechnology. We have already signed memorandums of understanding with companies to start and speed up clinical trials in Serbia, enable research and development in biotechnology, which will enable our citizens to receive the most modern medical care in the future," said the National Assembly Speaker.

She said that we should enter into a quick green energy transition. "I would like to invite German companies to think about things we can do together in terms of renewable energy sources, large energy storage systems and technology, battery production," Brnabic said.

Source: TANJUG