Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić has said early today that the Central Europe Free-Trade Agreement (CEFTA) is one of rare successful regional initiatives with visible results in the past 10 years.

CEFTA countries are the second foreign trade partner of Serbia, after the EU, and with the CEFTA member states Serbia has the surplus of €2.1 billion.

At the conference “Ten years of implementation of CEFTA Agreement: results and challenges”, Mr Ljajić has said that the reason of success is the prevalence of economy over politics.

“In this case the economy took the primary way and the politics didn’t”, Mr Ljajić underlined, assessing that CEFTA is of great importance for Serbia, since our country exports more to the CEFTA countries rather than to Russia, China and the USA combined.

“For example, we export two and a half times more in Macedonia than in the USA”, Mr Ljajić has noted.

Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia Michael Davenport has wished Serbia a successful presidency of that organisation in 2017, pointing out that Serbia will have the support of all CEFTA member states.

President of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Marko Čadež, saying that it is correct that we have the best cooperation with the countries in the region we used to fight with, and not only with the countries we traditionally consider to be our best friends, has asked the politicians to think twice before giving bombastic speeches because it might have negative impacts on the economy, citizens, and to always be responsible and have objectives to increase the life of the population