The Commissioner General for the Republic of Serbia at the global “Expo Milano 2015” exhibition, Žarko Malinović, at the economic forum co-organized with Unicredit Bank stated that “we can be satisfied with what has been achieved during the past five months as a respond to the main theme ‘Feed the Planet. Energy for Life’ and following events that further introduced Serbia and its potential to the world.”
Speaking for the Novi Sad Dnevnik, he said that when you connect a manufacturer from Serbia with a renowned retail chain and provide them with the opportunity to negotiate and place their products in such a system, you have enabled for new jobs in Serbia to develop in the best possible way.
The intent of encouraging Italian investors already doing business in Serbia to increase their business activities was specifically implemented in Pančevo.
The Italian company “ALM Nonwoven Manufacturing”, located on Jabučki put and doing business in Pančevo since 2012, opened a new manufactory plant for the production of sterile clothes for workers in the food and pharmaceutical industries on 21st September. This also means opening 50 new workplaces in the city on the river Tamiš, and everything that is produced in the plant will be exported, primarily to Italy and the EU countries. This is the best example of the constant promotion of Serbia as a good investment destination, Malinović explains.
The pavilion of Serbia also achieved close cooperation with the Italian giant already present in our country, the “Ferrero” company. When we have the “Ferrero” company as an ambassador, coming to do business in Serbia, with the educated workforce, resources and good business climate, this means a lot, more than if all our people were to praise us. The intent is to let foreign investors present the positive experiences of doing business in Serbia, and we all know what Italian investments mean for us, considering that Italy is among the five largest investors in Serbia, says Malinović, noting that today’s business forum with Unicredit Bank is a formula tried and tested already with Intesa, implemented during the National Day of Serbia at the EXPO in Milano.
Regarding agriculture and food industry, the exports of Serbia to Italy are on the increase, and this was a good indicator at the event in Milano, said Malinović and added that we, as a country, have sufficient capacities to respond to market requirements. We cannot compete in quantity with large agricultural production nations, such as Canada or Brazil, or even the Belorussian production of wheat. However, we can enter the market through the quality of our products. There are other countries that produce raspberries, for example, and they presented their raspberry just as we have done here with our “Agrovoće”. It is interesting that one Italian chain positioned one of our juice and jam producers in particular. It is obvious that the country should additionally encourage our farmers and processing plants to export final, industrial products as much as possible, instead of raw materials, and our opportunities lie in the quality of agricultural products.
The lack of exhibition space was made up for by the large number of events, explains Malinović and adds that this is how it was done since the first day of the global exhibition and will be continued through the last day, 31st October.
Malinović emphasizes that he presented only the business activities happening during the past months under the arch of the Serbian pavilion, hosting its 450,000th visitor a few days ago, Marco Zanobi, a commercialist from Milano. On this occasion, the director of the pavilion, Bojan Stevanović, presented him with appropriate presents.
