Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić has stated, on the occasion of the introduction of direct flight between Belgrade and Tehran, that it is the best indicator of how Serbia is getting ready for the arrival of Iranian tourists.

Direct flights are established after almost a decade, the operator will be Iran Air, and the tickets for the flights have been sold out until June.

This is why, as said by Mr Ljajić, a special survey was carried out regarding special circumstances and interest of the Iranian tourists.

In January only, the tourists from that country had 2.305 overnight stays in Serbia, says Mr Ljajić, underlining that he believes that the number of passengers on those flights will increase month by month.

“Apart from that, we are going to have a competition, flights of private Iranian companies starting of this month, so that the number of Iranian tourists will definitely increase, we believe that the visa-free regime we have together with the direct flight will ensure an easier communication of businessmen from Serbia and Iran, and we want to make Belgrade be the hub for the Iranian businessmen and investments”, says Mr Ljaić at the press conference.

Minister strongly believes that the economic and trade cooperation of the two countries will be at a higher level than it used to be when it comes to the exchange of goods and Iranian investments in Serbia.

Direct flights has a double significance, says Mr Ljajić, saying that it, in particular, significantly increases the touristic turnover between the two countries, and when it comes to Serbia, he expects an increase of Iranian tourists.

“Last year we carried out a number of promotional activities of touristic potentials of Serbia in Iran, together with Slovenia we presented ourselves in April last year in Tehran, presenting our joint touristic offer of Slovenia and Serbia, and this year Iran is one of eight priority markets, when we talk about the promotional activities of 2018”, says Mr Ljajić.

Speaking of the abuse of visa-free regime, Minister has underlined that Serbia is putting efforts to reduce that risk to the lowest possible degree since it must not question the visa-free regime in any way since it brings a huge benefit for the country in the tourists, economic and political sense, says Mr Ljajić.

“Of course that each achievement has both positive things such brought by those of the visa-free regime but also carry certain risks as well. Certain Iranian citizens coming here used Belgrade and Serbia as a transit centre for going to third countries, i.e. EU countries”, says Mr Ljajić.

According to his words, all measures are taken, in particular by the Iranian side to strengthen the control of entering the plane in Tehran and, this is done in order to reduce the number of potential Iranian citizens who want to reach third countries and use the visa-free regime to come to EU countries.

“That strengthened control will be in force all the time, and then, other mechanism which are available is to sign several agreements in the field of consular cooperation this week, and we will submit our draft agreement on readmission and that would be a legal framework for returning all those who do not want to stay in our country as tourists, but abuse the visa-free regime”, says Mr Ljajić.

With that, he has stressed that a joint consular committee will be formed consisted of the representatives of the institutions of both Serbia and Iran, which will apply and propose various measures along the way, in order to prevent various kind of abuse of the visa-free regime.

Ambassador or Iran Hossein Molla Abdollahi has stressed that establishing direct flight is the second important achievement in the cooperation of the two countries, after establishing the visa-free regime, and that this flight line is the outcome of serious efforts and honest cooperation of all officials and relevant institutions in Tehran and Belgrade.