Belgrade, Dec. 7, 2009 (Source: Serbia Today) –Serbia took over the presidency of the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) for 2010 from Montenegro at the end of the CEFTA summit in Becici, announced Minister of Trade and Services Slobodan Milosavljevic.
As of 1 May 2007, the parties of the CEFTA agreement are: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo. Former parties are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Their CEFTA membership ended when they joined the EU.
Originally developed in the 1990’s to integrate member nations with Western European nations by joining political, economic, security and legal systems. CEFTA’s ultimate goal is to support democracy and free market economics.
Milosavljevic stressed that he presented Serbia’s priorities for its presidency at the summit, which are related to removing economic barriers in trade, reported Serbian news agency Tanjug.
He said that serious work needs to be done in order to remove obstacles in the areas of customs and goods inspections, adding that Serbian representatives also said that they expect the trade liberalization process to go faster than initially planned.
“We insisted on quicker liberalization, first and foremost in the fields of agriculture and industrial products,” the Minister said. He added that at the meeting it was agreed that investment within the CEFTA region should be boosted and new industrial corporations formed which would do business in the region and in developing countries.
He explained that Serbia has a big advantage because of its free trade agreement with Russia, Belarus and Turkey. Other countries showed great interest in common projects that would focus on the markets of those countries.
Milosavljevic said that CEFTA successfully concluded the year and added that the Montenegrin chairmanship was of good quality, which is a good start for Serbia.
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