From money earned abroad to successful business in Serbia – CCIS to found Diaspora Home Office to aid investors

(Marko Cadez) The president of the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia (CCIS), Marko Cadez, is convinced that the new model of Diaspora Business Council and cooperation with diaspora, based on branch networking, can contribute to a more efficient realization of ideas and concrete projects of people from Serbia living abroad and their joint projects with business people from Serbia and companies from the countries they live and work in.

Cadez said that the CCIS was working on including as many Serbian people as possible in six branches – agrarian and food industry, energy and mining, IT industry, commerce, tourism and hotel business, metal, chemical and textile industry and construction, transport and infrastructure.

Cadez said that great funds had been coming from the diaspora in the previous period, but only as transfers of money for help to relatives, and added that it was a shame that people from Serbia living abroad didn't decide more often to make investment endeavors and cooperate with Serbian business people.

– They didn't have enough information or failed to recognize their interest. Still, there are increasingly more of those who are building successful businesses in Serbia with money earned abroad. Rade Ljubojevic of Uzice, owner of the Sirogojno Company, with 2,000 subcontractors and 300 employed weavers, is the biggest exporter of frozen and dried fruit and hand-made sweaters. There's also the Kragujevac-based company Milanovic Inzenjering, owned by Bratislav Milanovic – he said.

When asked whether people in the diaspora will receive incentives, and in what form, if they decide to invest in their mother country, he pointed out that the Law on Investments of 2015 had made local and foreign investors equal, in line with the standards of international investment legal practice.

– Furthermore, investors from the diaspora can count on the support of the new, unified chamber system of Serbia in all stages – from the idea to the realization of the investment project, and on all levels, from the national to the local. The Chamber of Commerce of Serbia, in cooperation with UNDP, is preparing a project of forming the Diaspora Home Office with the task of facilitating and providing support and help to the realization of investments from the diaspora – Cadez pointed out.

– In the past year, the Australian-Serbian Chamber of Commerce, as well as business associations of the Diaspora in Hungary and the Republic of South Africa, have been founded with the support of CCIS. We are working with the diaspora from North America on developing the project of a Serbian logistics and distribution center in Toronto, and we are considering the possibilities of organizing a gathering with the aim of connecting IT companies from Chicago and Serbia – he emphasized.

Privredna komora Srbije

Sirogojno Company d.o.o. Sirogojno

Siemens Mobility d.o.o. Cerovac

CCIS

Marko Cadez

Diaspora Business Council

investments from the diaspora

Rade Ljubojevic

Bratislav Milanovic

Law on Investments

UNDP

Diaspora Home Office