. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION   
WT/MIN(11)/ST/129 
17 December 2011 
 (11-6880) 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
Eighth Session Geneva, 15 - 17 December 2011 Original:   English 
 
  
SERBIA 
 
Statement by Mrs. Bojana Todorovi ć 
Assistant Minister 
Ministry of Economy and Regional Development 
 
(Speaking as an Observer) 
  
Allow me first to greet you all on behalf of the Ministry of Economy and Regional 
Development of the Republic of Serbia and to tha nk the WTO Secretariat for excellent organization of 
this important event.  
Nowadays, it is visible that we all share the same challenges: national problems have also an 
international dimension and regional crises are gl obally linked. Indeed, the global nature of the 
financial, economic, debt and recently growth crisis we have been expe riencing so far, reminds us that 
only together we can respond to that challenges. 
 
Serbia has taken important steps towards establishing a functional market economy and 
achieved a macroeconomic stability in spite of th e global economic and fina ncial crisis. However, 
further efforts will be necessary for restructuring the economy and improving the business environment, in particular by strengthening the rule  of law, enhancing competition and the role of the 
private sector as well as tackling rigidities on the labour market.  
 
Drop of Serbian GDP growth rate in 2009 of 3.1% was corrected by recovery in 2010 of 
1.5%. The projection of GDP growth rate for 2011 is  that it will reach around 2 %. Budget deficit is 
projected at the level of 4.5% of GDP and the share of public debt is 41.7%. In the field of employment, Serbian government continues to f ace a serious challenge despite the fact that 
government has taken measures to support self-emplo yment, start-up business and entrepreneurial 
activities. After the negative trends had stabilised dur ing 2010, the labour market further deteriorated 
in early 2011 reaching the rate of unemployment of 22.2 %.   
 
Aware that an increase in trade generates benefit form factors reallocation, contributes 
macroeconomic stability, improves productivity and competitiveness, Serbia believes that further 
trade liberalization generally on the multilateral leve l and regionally might be one of the important 
responses to crisis. 
 
Having this in mind Serbia invested efforts to  negotiate further trade liberalization in the 
regional framework, within CEFTA, but has also ta ken significant measures to extand free trade with 
other countries or to improve the level of economic  coooperation with them in last two years by 
conluding new FTA agreements with EFTA and cu stoms union of Russia, Belarus and Kazahstan.  
 WT/MIN(11)/ST/129 
Page 2  
 
  We share the view that trade protectionism is not  an answer to the current global situation and 
our practice has demonstrated our words.  
 The role of WTO in the period of global economi c crisis is even bigger than in the period of 
stable economic environment. Know ing that open and fair trade ar e prerequisites for accelerating 
growth it becomes more evident that successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round could 
generate increase of world exports, according to so me projections between 360 bill$ and 500 bill$ on 
annual basis, which can constitute a sound basis fo r ensuring sustainable growth and thus help 
economies in specific challenging period.  
Not using the opportunity of creating more favourable trading conditions could orient 
countries to protectionism and violation of multilatera lly agreed rules. This is why at this very 
important juncture for the global trade on WTO Me mbers lays the responsibility for restoring the 
credibility in the multilateral trading system. A strong global political will has to be invested in this 
project.  
 
One positive sign in the right direction repr esents the accessions of Vanuatu, Samoa, 
Montenegro and the Russian Federation to the WTO which not only gives the organization a truly universal character, but also at the same time puts the majority of the world economy under the same 
umbrella of international rules and responsibilities.  
The Republic of Serbia is ready to stand under the same WTO umbrella. 
 
The accession to WTO remains the foreign econo mic priority of my country. Our foreign 
economic priority goes hand in hand with our efforts to  combat the crisis since we believe that greater 
trade openness and becoming a part of the multilateral trading system would help to further boost 
economic activities in the country and also help  to improve so much needed competitiveness. 
 
Encouraged with the new accessions to WTO,  Serbia is prepared to take full WTO 
commitments and responsibilities under fair and equita ble rules for every country and we hope that 
our WTO Members partners woul d help us in this process. 
 
 
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