Good economic cooperation between Serbia and Montenegro should be additionally strengthened and stimulated by better infrastructure connection of the two countries, as assessed in the meeting of Prime Minister of Montenegro Duško Marković and Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić, in an official visit to Podgorica, invited by the Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism of Montenegro Pavle Radulović.

Speaking of a good bilateral cooperation especially in tourism, the meeting also served to discuss the opportunities of joint activities in the markets of third countries.

“We find Montenegro as a very important market in terms of economy, we have a trade of over €700 million, and our objection is to reach the trade from 2008 which exceeded one billion euros”, Deputy Prime Minister Ljajić.

“In order to achieve that we need to improve our road and railway infrastructure”, said he, adding that in that respect we can jointly present ourselves in the European Union since the infrastructure is a precondition for a significantly higher trade.

Mr Ljajić has stated that today’s visit is a follow-up of a successful visit of Montenegrin Prime Minister Duško Marković to Belgrade, adding that we want to make a series of practical steps to make this cooperation even more operative, practical and concrete.

“We hope we have been successful in the field of tourism. We have agreed a full range of activities in the upcoming days starting from the join presentation in third markets, participation in fairs of tourism in Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo”, said Mr Ljajić adding that there is mutual interest in joint activities in the markets of the USA and Iran. He has said that Serbia is ready to offer Montenegro to open a joint tourism office in Tehran to be made with the financial support of Iran.

“The more distant those markets are, the bigger need for integration of our touristic offer is”, said Mr Ljajić.
He has said that there is a cooperation plan of chambers of commerce of Serbia and Montenegro, and the cooperation of eight travel agencies which, with the support of line ministries, should present joint touristic products.