PM seeks to tighten economic co-up with Belgrade
As part of a two-day visit to Serbia, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday expressed his desire to strengthen economic cooperation between Athens and Belgrade on all sectors.
“2024 is an opportunity for us to make a big leap in our economic relations. Our bilateral trade is about 750 million euros, but we can certainly do much more,” Mitsotakis said and referred to housing projects, infrastructure such as railway networks, energy provision and waste management.
He stated his certainty that Greek businesses will “seize the opportunity to participate in Serbian economic success.”
“Our economy, you know, finds itself in a position not too dissimilar from the course of the Serbian economy, as it exits a prolonged economic crisis,” the Greek Prime Minister said.
He added that during the Greek financial crisis, the country’s banks abandoned the Balkan market, but that they now have “much stronger balance sheets, I am certain that they will develop an interest in returning to Serbia in order to co-finance all these important economic development schemes.”
Mitsotakis also underlined the importance Greece pays to roadway and railway axes linking Greece, North Macedonia, and Serbia with Central Europe, and how infrastructural cooperation could see Greece providing Serbia with natural gas, as well as assisting it in its own “green transition.”
“Serbia’s greater integration into Europe’s economic fabric is in itself an important legacy, so that Serbia can claim its place in the European family, where I firmly believe it belongs.”
