Assistant Minister for consumer protection Vesna Novaković has said early today that the implementation of the third projects jointly funded by the European Union and Serbia in the field of consumer protection, has started, which value is € 1.425.000
At the gathering on the occasion of the beginning of the two-year twinning project “Further Development of Consumer Protection in Serbia”, held in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, she said that the objective of further improvement of the consumer protection system is a more efficient negotiations in that field and the accession to the EU.
Assistant Minister for consumer protection has said that the project is implemented by the Ministry of the National Development of the Republic of Hungary and the Regional Development Agency Senec-Pezinok from Slovakia in cooperation with the Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications of the Republic of Serbia.
Ms Novaković has stressed that since 2008 since the beginning of project funding of consumer associations the line ministry has allocated a million euros for the support of their work.
She has estimated that a lot has been done for the protection of the consumer rights in Serbia and that investments have been made in the regional organisations of consumers, so that the citizens in entire Serbia could more easily ask for advice and assistance.
“We will work also on the education of sale persons, to facilitate their work and help them have a better implementation of the legal norms”, she said, adding that the goal is to raise the consumer protection in Serbia to a higher level.
Ms Novaković has said that in the first nine months this year, 12.823 complaints have been registered, and that the majority of them refers to footwear and mobile phones.
She has said that out of the total number of consumer’s complaints, 20 per cent referred to the footwear quality, 12 per cent to mobile phones, and then the services such as electrical power supply, water and gas, with the participation of 7.8 per cent, then computers and IT equipment 5.6 per cent.
“Consumers were complaining about the telecommunication services, appliances, clothes and furniture”, says Ms Novaković.
The largest number of complaints, according to her words, referred to the non-conformity of the goods and services, violation of consumer’s rights in the complaining procedure, non-issue and amount of the receipts, delivery of goods and warranty.
