New Decree on attracting direct investments

Newsletter 103

What changes have been implemented in the process of allocating incentive funds?

Serbia has been now for several years steadily improving its ranking in the World Bank Doing Business list, progressing 4 ranks in 2018 in comparison to the previous year and is currently ranked 43rd place in the global list. Given the announced reforms in the economy and e-commerce, it is expected that the trend of growth on the said list will continue.

In that sense, on 19th May 2018 the new Decree on the conditions and method of attracting direct investments (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia”, No. 37/2018, hereinafter: Regulation) entered into force and it contains several novelties in relation to the previous regulation. It can be said that in the essential and material aspects the new Decree relies on last year’s regulation, but it also introduces certain clarifications and precisions, as well as novelties that we shall highlight down below.
The most important novelty is in the allocation of investment projects and criteria for the analysis of investment projects, depending on the number of persons that will be employed, or whether there will be up to 100 or more than 100 new jobs.

Also, it is a novelty that the rule was abolished that funds can be allocated for projects in the fisheries sector, which was possible under the previous regulation. Furthermore, according to the new regulation, funds can be allocated to the software development sector, if it serves the purpose to promote products, production processes or to provide services in international trade. They can also be allocated for hotel accommodation services projects in the territory of the local self-government unit, in which a spa territory was established (which list is defined by the Decree), with a minimum value of EUR 2.000.000 and which provides employment for at least 70 new employees for an indefinite period of time (Article 9, paragraph 1, item 4).