Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić has opened today the 61st International Fair on Technique and Technological Achievements, underlining that the IT sector in Serbia, starting of this year, has marked the growth by 30 per cent when it comes to the export of computer services which value exceeds 160 million euros.

“Serbia today takes the 65th position out of 128 countries according to the technological development index. We live at the time of the fourth technological revolution, and this event is called “the fair of all fairs” with a reason”, Mr Ljajić has said, adding that annually there are around 200 new IT companies established in Serbia.

Speaking of the reasons why Serbia is in the middle of the list of the countries regarding technological development, Mr Ljajić has said that there are three basic reasons, primarily because we still have small allocations for science, research and development, the fact is that we have a huge brain drain, the third one is a not well developed connection between science and economy”.

He has said that Serbia allocates 0.4 per cent of the GDB from the budget for science, and as he has mentioned, the total amount of all sources of financing at the level of the government is 0.8 per cent of the GDP.

“In the EU that average is around 2 per cent of the GDP, and our task is to increase that percentage to 0.6 by 2025, and when speaking of all the sources of financing, to make that figure reach 1.5 per cent of GDP”, Mr Ljajić has explained.

Minister has also stated that the private sector invests four times less money in development of the technology than the EU Member States. “Today, we have around 2.800 researchers per one million citizens, and the EU average is 5.000 researchers”, say he, adding that Serbia has around five thousand doctors of science working worldwide and the same number of young researchers, which is a huge deficit for our country.

“Our scientific achievements very often remain closed inside our scientific institutions since there is no connection with the private sector, and those achievements do not get any financial valorisation in the economy and new products and services”, concluded Mr Ljajić, adding that the IT sector in Serbia has 10 thousand companies, employing around 20 thousand people, mostly the young.

At this year’s International Fair of Technique and Technological Achievements in Belgrade Fair, there are 500 presenters from 30 countries.