Assistant Minister for Multilateral and Regional Economic and Trade Cooperation Bojana Todorović, speaking today at the event “Trade Facilities in the CEFTA Region” held at the SCCI, said that trade and the public procurement market in the CEFTA region are fully liberalized, while the liberalization of trade in services is expected by the end of this year or by mid-2017.

She said that a lot is expected of the liberalization of trade and that CEFTA is an agreement of great significance for the Serbian economy.

The region is the second largest foreign-trade partner to Serbia after the EU, said Todorović, adding that since the founding of CEFTA the surplus increased from one billion euros in 2007 to two billion euros in 2015. She stated that Serbia’s trade with CEFTA was worth 3.7 billion dollars last year.

Todorović explained that the majority of Serbian exports are to Bosnia and Hercegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, mainly agricultural-food products, beverages, metal and steel products.

She stated that there are novelties in the Agreement including the reform of the dispute resolution system, since the previous one was proven to be inefficient, while the resolving of non-customs barriers is a permanent issue.

The participants to the event stated that the agreement was expanded to many areas, with negotiations on the liberalization of trade in services, however the non-customs barriers remain a significant challenge.

It was also noted that cross-border trade in the region has been significantly improved, but the degree of the liberalization of trade is not at the expected level due to the complex procedures at border crossings.

In order to accelerate the movement of goods and reduce costs, a more intensive cooperation is required in the field of international accreditation of laboratories for signatories of CEFTA and the mutual validation of such analyses, the improvement of the work of inspections and the more efficient exchange of information and documents between customs and inspection bodies.