Director of the Development Agency of Serbia (RAS), Mr. Rados Gazdic gave an interview with the new issue of CorD magazine. The interview focuses on the current economic challenges, Government prompt response to it, and opportunities that might arise from these challenging times for certain companies and business entities, especially Serbian companies which might find their niche in the global supply chains. Moreover, the interview gives an overview of the impressive results Serbia has made until today when it comes to attracting foreign direct investments, especially the tendency to implement projects based on sophisticated technology. 

                            Photo: CorD magazine 

The experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic could prompt major companies to opt for geographically closer suppliers and logistically simpler processes in the future. This is an opportunity for Serbia to attract new foreign investors, but also for domestic companies to become parts of large, global supply chains. Under the circumstances of the pandemic, there was almost no delay in constructing capacities for contracted investments, which reached record levels in 2019 – A total of 3,825 billion euros FDI which is the largest inflow of FDI in our country to date, as stated Gazdic for CorD. 

When it comes to the SME sector, RAS is in constant communication with enterprises, but in a survey conducted with representatives of this sector has also seen that some of the challenges include maintaining the level of operations that they had prior to the crisis. However, they agree that the measures taken by the government proved to be an effective intervention without which it would not have been possible to return to regular business flows.

He added that large companies and multinational corporations had a situation globally, and also here, which saw the interruption or aggravated functioning of supply chains. And that will probably influence the future reorientation of these companies towards suppliers that are geographically closer and towards processes that are logistically simpler. 

“In such potential changes, we hope that companies from Serbia will join the supply chains of major world players – that they will take advantage of the opportunity that has imposed itself as a positive in this period,” stressed director RAS. 

The complete interview is available online HERE.