The first meeting of Serbian-Greek Business Council in Athens

Recently founded Greek-Serbian Business Council, which consists of 40 most significant Serbian and Greek companies, will have its first meeting on Friday, October 21st in Athens. The meeting will be attended by the representatives of Greek and Serbian governments, big number of businessmen and representatives of companies from both countries. The presiding officer at the meeting will be the deputy of the Minister of Foreing Affairs of Greece - Evripidis Stylianidis, as well as the Minister of International Economic Relations of Government of Serbia - Dr Milan Parivodić.

Besides the presentations, the subjects of the meeting will be the double taxation system, legal protection in Serbia and other issues that are of relevance to strengthening of business relations between Greek and Serbian companies.

Symeon Tsomokos, president of Greek part of Business Council said at the press conference that the meeting would be attended by both Greek companies that had already invested in Serbia and those that did not realize any cooperation with the companies from Serbia. He pointed out that that was not the conference that would solve all problems in Serbian-Greek relations, but that it would surely improve economic-trade relations between Greece and Serbia.

Greece is one of the biggest investor in field of banking, telecommunications, petroleum industry, sugar and cement industries. According to Jasmina Hadžiabdić, assistant to Minister of International Economic Relations of Republic of Serbia, the wish and the aim is that Greece become one of the top five investors in Serbia in 2006. Serbian part of Business Council, she adds, travels to Athens to show why Serbia can become the center for Greek investments.

Company Jugoagent, Trayal Corporation, Tourism Organization of Serbia, Navip, Energoprojekt, Dijamant, Goša, Hemofarm, Kontinental banka, Galenika, Tigar, EFG Eurobank, Hellenic Petroleum, Piraeus Bank, Motorola, Sarakakis Group, Delta Ice cream are just some of the companies that will attend this meeting.

The next meeting will be held in Belgrade in March 2006.

M. Šćekić