Representatives of large French companies in Serbia on June 10th

The representatives of about 30 large French companies will arrive tomorrow (June 10, 2009) and stay in Serbia for three days, during which they intend to meet with Serbian officials and the representatives of companies.

As the Ambassador of France to Belgrade, Jean-Francois Terral explained to agency "Beta", the aim of the visit of the directors of French companies is to stimulate investments of French companies in Serbia.

- The frequency of investments used to be higher, but now that process is a bit slower, and we would like to give an impulse to it - said Terral and added that the companies that were coming to Serbia were the members of French business confederation - Mouvement des Enterprises de France (MEDEF), which has about 3,000 members.

He said that French companies must be shown that Serbia had changed and that it offered great investment opportunities.

The plan is that the directors of French companies meet with the President of Serbia, Boris Tadić, the Prime Minister of Serbia, Mirko Cvetković, the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, Božidar Đelić, the Mayor of Belgrade, Dragan Đilas, and the President of the Executive Council of Vojvodina, Bojan Pajtić.

The ministers of infrastructure and telecommunications of Serbia will also have meetings with French companies from these sectors, and the representatives of the two largest environmental companies, "Veolia" and "Suez", will meet with the Minister of Environment of Serbia, Oliver Dulić. There will also be two meetings of representatives of French and Serbian companies.

According to the words of the Ambassador of France, the delegation will include 13 companies that are among "top 40" French companies, which are internationally significant.

Some of the companies that will visit Serbia are global leaders in their sectors, such as manufacturer of industrial gases "Air liquide", railway transportation company "Alstom", building company "Bouigues" and network equipment manufacturer "Alcatel Lucent".

The delegation will also include some companies that are already present in the market of Serbia, such as trade company "Intermarche", Law firm "Gide", cement factory "Lafarge" and tire manufacturer "Michelin", as well as numerous other companies that have not invested in Serbia so far, such as air transportation company EADS, owned by airplane manufacturer "Airbus".