BELGRADE – 21 February 2017 – Representatives of the Development Agency of Serbia (RAS) and Japanese Business Alliance in Serbia (JBAS) have signed the Memorandum of Cooperation with a goal of efficiently coordinating activities aiming to improve economic cooperation between Serbia and Japan.

The Memorandum has been signed by Rados Gazdic, Acting Director of RAS and Danijela Cabarkapa, JBAS Executive Director.

RAS and JBAS will implement joint activities on: connecting the business people of the two countries with a goal of strengthening business relations and cooperation, organising education of businesses and joint events for the purpose of exchanging experiences, exchanging information about business opportunities; exchanging information about basic economic indicators and economic trends, promoting Serbia as a potential investment destination for Japanese companies and providing assistance for business operations of companies from the two countries in the markets of Serbia and Japan.

"Cooperation between Serbia and Japan has been developing in recent years, and with this Memorandum we want to contribute to even better economic cooperation and links between Serbian and Japanese businesses, in order to promote economic development of our country. Serbia is a country with big Japanese investments, such as: Japan Tobacco International in Senta, Yazaki in Sabac, Panasonic Lighting Devices in Svilajnac and Kansai in Gornji Milanovac, which employ more than a thousand people. We hope that there will be even more similar investments", said Rados Gazdic, Acting Director of RAS.

Gazdić reminded the participants about the cooperation with the Japanese institutions "JICA" (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and "JETRO" (Japan External Trade Organization) which started in 2002 with education and employee training, and expanded to the implementation of joint projects.

"Cooperation between RAS and JBAS will also be reflected in getting closer to Japanese business culture, with the goal of transferring Japan's experiences and their implementation in Serbia. The cooperation that both institutions have with the Japanese organizations JETRO, in the field of economic cooperation, and JICA, in the field of support to small and medium-sized enterprises, will be strengthened and improved further through direct communication, advice and recommendations of Japanese business circles joined within JBAS, which will also contribute to further improvement of business conditions and further growth of the Japanese business community in Serbia", said Danijela Cabarkapa, JBAS Executive Director.

The signing ceremony was joined by JBAS Board of Directors members, Naoki Tsukada, General Manager of Mitsubishi Corporation Belgrade, Milos Boricic, Chief of Business Development from the Mitsubishi Corporation Београд, Jovica Lukic, Country Manager Serbia, Astellas Pharma Belgrade, as well as representatives of Japanese organisations JICA and JETRO.

Source of photography CORD