Minister of Economy and Regional Development Nebojsa Ciric today voiced his expectation that a result of the Serbian delegation’s two-day visit to Algeria will be further access of Serbian companies to the Algerian market.

Ciric, who is on a two-day working visit to Algeria, told Tanjug news agency that a €350 billion investment project is under way in Algeria.

The Minister said that agreement was reached on establishing joint enterprises, to which Serbian companies will export works, conduct supervision and provide consulting services.

As an example, he mentioned the project to construct cold storage plants throughout Algeria and a €70 million project to construct a dam.

Ciric noted that he and the Algerian representatives are conducting talks to enable Serbian companies to participate in tenders and to acknowledge guarantees of our banks as relevant.

This will enable Serbian companies to become leaders in specific projects and the transfer of technologies and knowledge in Algeria.

The first day of the Serbian state-economic delegation to Algeria, during which a session of the Algerian-Serbian mixed committee was held, was extremely successful and will result in the signing of several agreements.

The Minister observed that meetings were held with Algerian Minister of Water Resources Abdelmalek Sellal, Minister of Industry and SMEs Mohamed Ben Meradi and representatives of the Ministry of Finance.

Ciric announced that a Business Forum will be held today which will be attended by over 30 businesspeople from the largest Serbian companies.

The Serbian business delegation includes managers from the Jubmes Bank, Jugoimport SDPR, Hidrotehnika – Hidroenergetika, Water Management Institute Jaroslav Cerni, oil industry of Serbia NIS, Putevi Uzice, Energoprojekt, Galenika and Zemun-based ITN.

In the trade exchange with Algeria, Serbia achieves a surplus exporting goods worth around $8 million. So far, the Serbian companies have had a large share in Algerian development projects.

There are objective possibilities to engage Serbian companies to a greater degree in terms of delivering machines and equipment, agricultural machines, foodstuffs, rubber and consumer goods, especially medicines, while a transfer of technology and the sale of state-of-the-art food production equipment are also possible.