What Agreements Signed Within Open Balkans Initiative Bring to the Economy – Barriers Dropping, Region Becoming Unified Investment Area

The economy and the citizens of Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia will soon be able to trade, travel, mutually employ people in scarce occupations more easily and to integrate economically within the Open Balkans initiative more quickly. This was confirmed yesterday at the summit of the three leaders in Tirana with the signing of six trilateral and bilateral agreements, whose implementation is supposed to upgrade the business in the region and quicken the flow of people, capital, services and goods. With their signatures, the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and the prime ministers of Albania and North Macedonia, Edi Rama and Zoran Zaev, gave the guarantee and support that what was agreed and signed would take root in practice.

– The answer from the side of politics is what the economy wanted and that is indeed a true dialogue. Today, we have concrete solutions which save time and money and make our economies more competitive in the global market. In the next three months, the common labor market and the single work permit will take root – said Marko Cadez, the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia (CCIS), as announced by the CCIS.

Business people expect the first benefits to become apparent in practice very quickly through the implementation of harmonized phytosanitary, veterinarian and other certificates, whereby the operating costs will be reduced, and the companies’ competitiveness will be improved.

– MK Group, as one of the leading investment groups in Southeast Europe, supports all the initiatives which aim to facilitate the flow of goods, export and import, and to reduce barriers in doing business. We are sure that the agreements will contribute to the acceleration of the execution of the Open Balkans initiative – stated Milos Mijovic, the director of MK Agriculture. He points out that the agrarian sector is one of the most important factors of connecting the economies of the region and announces the continuation of investments in modern and smart agriculture through digitalization and innovations.

At the company Milsped, they point out that Open Balkans and the common regional market contribute to the strengthening of the production and exporting capacities and the reduction of business costs for companies in the region.

– The region is promoted as a unified investment destination, our companies are becoming more competitive in the European and global markets, we are getting a unified labor force market, the mutual recognition of AEO authorizations, as well as a common phytosanitary and veterinarian checking system and a quicker flow of goods at borders with 24-hour operations – emphasizes Marko Divljan, the director of Milsped in Albania.

Slobodan Reljic, the manager of projects for new markets at Delta Agrar says that the company imports a lot of fruit and vegetables from Albania and that the harmonized certificates will considerably simplify the whole process and make it less expensive. “As importers, we are obliged to do an analysis of every product we import to Serbia, making sure that it is healthy, after which it can be put on the market. Those analyses are not cheap and the facilities brought by the signed agreements will considerably reduce the costs,” Reljic explains. The common procedures will make the production less expensive and improve the competitiveness. According to him, the single work permits will enable the employment of workers from the region with good daily wages. He reminds that they have hired workers from India.

The agreements signed in Tirana are: the Agreement on the Conditions for a Free Access to the Labor Market in the Western Balkans, the Agreement on Connecting the Schemes of Electronic Identification of the Residents of the Western Balkans and the Agreement on Cooperation in Veterinarian, Phytosanitary and Food and Animal Feed Safety in the Western Balkans.

The Government of Serbia and the Council of Ministers of Albania signed an agreement on the mutual recognition of the certification of authorized economic operators for security and safety (AEOs), and the Government of North Macedonia and the Council of Ministers of Albania signed the same agreement between those two countries. On the sidelines of the summit, the Agreement on Cooperation of Accreditation Bodies in the Western Balkans was signed.

Privredna komora Srbije

MK Group d.o.o. Beograd

MK Agriculture d.o.o. Novi Sad

Milšped d.o.o. Beograd

Delta Agrar d.o.o. Beograd

Council of Ministers of Albania

Government of North Macedonia

Marko Čadež

Mioš Mijović

Marko Divljan

Slobodan Reljić

agriculture

trade

Open Balkans

export