Serbia and Turkey signed Agreement on free trade

- Serbia and Turkey signed the Agreement on free trade yesterday (June 1st, 2009) in Istanbul, which is going to be put in effect on January 1st, 2010 - the Ministry of Economy of Serbia announced.

The Agreement was signed at the Economic Summit in Istanbul, and it will be applied according to the model of asymmetric trade liberalization, in favor of Serbian side.

- The Agreement represents an opportunity for our exporters to start duty-free export of goods to Turkey, which is a large market with 75m citizens, as soon as January 2010 - said the Minister of Economy of Serbia, Mlađan Dinkić, following the signing of the Agreement.

As Dinkić explained, the liberalization process on Serbian side will be developed in three phases prior to year 2015.

- During the negotiations with Turkish side, we focused on protection of agriculture, textile industry and ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, so that higher duties will be kept for import of these products from Turkey - said Dinkić.

Dinkić said that Serbia got the opportunity to immediately start exporting all industrial products free of duty.

The Minister of Foreign Trade of Turkey, Zafir Čalajan, and Dinkić have estimated that the application of the Agreement will create conditions for enlargement of overall volume of mutual trade exchange, especially Serbia's export of goods, and that it will contribute to greater engagement of Turkish investors in Serbian economy sector.

Dinkić has also spoken about investment opportunities in Serbia to the members of "Deik" association, which gathers representatives of nearly 600 Turkish companies.