Minister of Trade and Services Slobodan Milosavljevic said  that 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.

In a statement to Tanjug news agency Milosavljevic stressed that he presented Serbia’s priorities for its presidency at the summit, which are related to removing economic barriers in trade.

He said that serious work needs to be done in order to remove obstacles in the areas of customs and phytosanitary and other inspections, adding that Serbian representatives also said that they expect the trade liberalisation process to go faster than initially planned.

We insisted on quicker liberalisation, 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 in that sense 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 completed this year and added that the Montenegrin chairmanship was of good quality, which is a good start for Serbia.