During the official visit to the Republic of Serbia, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said that the mutual Ukrainian-Serbian trade turnover was growing significantly. "In the first quarter of this year, it grew by 34% and it is a very decent figure," Petro Poroshenko noted and expressed hope for the expansion of trading positions.
The Head of State called on Serbian entrepreneurs to invest in Ukraine, using small privatization, new privatization contests, sharp increase in the quality of the investment climate. Petro Poroshenko reminded that Ukraine rose from 153 to 76 in the Doing Business rating. "And this is one of the greatest progress that any country has ever demonstrated," he added.
According to him, the prospective directions for investments in our country are the food industry, pharmacological industry, processing industry and machine-building industry. Petro Poroshenko expressed conviction that it would be facilitated by the completion of negotiations on the establishment of the free trade area and the acceleration of Serbia's accession to the World Trade Organization.
The President of Ukraine also said that today, during the Ukrainian-Serbian talks, it was agreed to convene a bilateral intergovernmental commission in the near future.
"We have agreed that only on one or two positions, grain and corn, there will be measures protecting the Serbian market for obvious reasons. On all the rest - and this is our fundamental position - we will remove any barriers. Only free trade, only the absence of any barriers guarantees the growth of trade, guarantees the strengthening of economic ties between our countries," Petro Poroshenko stressed.
The Head of State also announced the signing of a document aimed at effectively combating corruption. It is about the exchange of data between the customs authorities of Ukraine and Serbia. "In order not to allow tax evasion in Ukraine and Serbia. And to improve the effectiveness of the fight against corruption," he said. Petro Poroshenko also noted that Ukraine should sign such documents with all its major trading partners.
In turn, President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić noted that only since 2017, after a big fall, only now Ukraine and Serbia had begun to increase the volume of trade cooperation. "And here we have data on increasing imports and exports from both sides," he said and expressed hope that a figure of $ 1 billion would be achieved in the near future.
"I believe that we will soon have an agreement on free trade between Ukraine and Serbia," the President of Serbia said and expressed readiness to work actively in this direction. He underlined, at the same time, that Serbia had a strong interest in developing trade and business relations with Ukraine.
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