What’s new in the process of allocation of incentives? 

Newsletter 96

Serbia has made progress in the World Bank Doing Business report for 2017 by advancing 7 positions compared to the last year, and now ranks 47th on the global list. Whether this growth trend will continue depends on the attractiveness and the opportunities created by our country for investment, primarily the investment incentives. 

A new Regulation on Terms and Conditions for Attracting Direct Investment entered into force on the last day of 2016 (“RS Official Gazette”, No. 110/2016; hereinafter: the Regulation) providing for some important novelties. Whilst the new regulation builds on the previous one, it also brings some clarifications and refinements, as well as some novelties that we shall bring to your attention. 

The Regulation abolishes the term “investment of local importance” contained in the previous regulation, which allowed for a local self-government to define, based on its programme of local economic development, the criteria by which an investment in its territory was the “investments of local interest”. However, the substantially similar mechanism has been preserved through the redefined term “investment of special importance for the Republic of Serbia”, where the investments of special importance include those being implemented in the territory of a local self-government and encouraging implementation of development priorities in order to increase competitiveness. The decision defining a development priority is adopted by the Assembly of the local self-government. (Regulation, Art. 16, Paragraph 1, Item 2).