Foreign Investors Flee Unstable Serbia
| 22 April 2008 |
Even before the elections have occurred, many foreign investors are packing their bags – worried by Serbia’s possible drift into isolationism.
By Jelena Marinkovic in Pirot Serbia is in danger of losing substantial amounts of foreign investments, owing to fears about the country’s long-term political stability, economists are warning.
According to some estimates, since the beginning of this year, Serbia has lost around 750 million euros as a result of a silent “freeze” in foreign investments.
The town of Pirot, in south-east Serbia, for example, is in danger of losing out on 8 million euros of investment if footwear company Geox abandons plans open a factory there.
Representatives of the world’s third-largest shoe manufacturers say they are awaiting the outcome of May 11 parliamentary elections in Serbia before making a final decision on whether to open a factory in Pirot.
The elections in Serbia are being followed with great interest at home and abroad and are widely seen as a potentially crucial contest between embattled pro-European centrists and resurgent nationalists – the latter capitalising on national resentment over the loss of the former province of Kosovo and the perceived failure of economic reforms to lift living standards.
Some companies have abandoned major investments in Serbia without even waiting for the election results – rattled in some cases by the anti-Western riots that briefly gripped Belgrade following Kosovo’s February 17 declaration of independence.
The Austrian company Atek failed to purchase the large but run-down copper mining and smelting complex in Bor, south-east Serbia – as it could not meet the payment deadlines defined by the contract with the Serbian privatisation agency signed this winter.
The explanation given by the Atek CEO Mirko Kovac to media was that Deutsche Bank did not give the Austrian company the bank guarantee to close the deal on time. According to Kovac, the German bank is withdrawing from financing major investment projects in Serbia.
In a statement earlier in April, the bank's Belgrade office however denied it was pulling out of the Balkans.
The Slovene company Tus has also postponed scheduled construction of a large shopping mall in Vranje, in southern Serbia.
General Motors representatives because of the February unrest postponed their announced visit to the Zastava car manufacturer in Kragujevac, central Serbia, local media reported. But, another meeting was held in Germany and it is expected that the company will go ahead with its plans to start assembling its Opel Astra models there later this year.
Portfolio investors began withdrawing back in January, and judging by the decreased involvement of foreign investors in the purchase of stocks and stock index movements, the trend will only increase at least until the elections.
BELEX15, the index of most liquid shares at the Belgrade Stock Exchange, dropped around 30 per cent since the beginning of the year, partly due to the global economic crisis and to the reluctance of investors to trade at Serbia's risky stock market which is also marred with low liquidity.
Economists predict that even if the withdrawal of capital ceases, and its flow into Serbia merely slows down, Serbia will still face a financial crisis.
Serious damage to the economy, primarily through the worsening of expectations by investors and potential investors, has already been done.
Economists say political instability has a clear knock-on impact on the economic realm and any further deterioration in the country’s political troubles could have additional serious consequences to the flow of foreign investments, leading to a rise in prices among other things.
The question marks over Geox are seen as particularly worrying. After talks with Serbian President Boris Tadic in January, the Italian-based business announced it would invest around 8 million euros in building and opening a factory in Pirot.
In the first phase, the firm planned to employ around 1,000 workers, which would have reduced unemployment in the town by a significant 15 per cent.
In Vranje, meanwhile, around 100 local people were expecting to find jobs in the Tus shopping mall.
Last year, the Slovene company paid around 1.5 million euros to the municipality of Vranje for the use of construction land and agreed to pay 2,000 euros monthly to rent the land. The construction of the shopping mall was planned for March, occupying more than 3,000 square metres.
Ivana Jovanovic, representative of Tus in Belgrade, said the company was abandoning all its activities in Serbia as a whole, not only in Vranje.
Goran Nikolic, from the Belgrade based Centre of Scientific and Research Work and Economic Analyses, said reductions in investments affected imports, exports and industrial production, leading first to a slowing-down and then to an absolute drop in GNP.
This was primarily because growth in Gross National Product is mostly induced by local demand, which in Serbia’s case would stagnate without strong loan activity.
Dragan Kostic, director of the Pirot Free Zone, where the Geox factory was supposed to be opened, confirmed that the heads of Geox had decided to postpone any final decision about the factory until the results of the elections.
He said the latest jitters were damaging the Free Zone’s prospects in Pirot, which was hoping to attract more foreign investors in future.
If, after the elections, a nationalist coalition was to be formed, presumably under the auspices of the Serbian Radical Party, the flow of foreign capital would become minimal, Nikolic warned, and the country would be increasingly isolated internationally.
He predicted that the Belgrade stock market would continue operations but without serious movements and with a lower value of stocks. The Serbian currency, the dinar, would come under pressure, and foreign reserves diminish.
Jelena Marinkovic is a journalist with Pirot TV. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
This article was produced as part of OSCE `s Mission in Serbia Economic Journalism training project in cooperation with BIRN.
By Jelena Marinkovic in Pirot Serbia is in danger of losing substantial amounts of foreign investments, owing to fears about the country’s long-term political stability, economists are warning.
According to some estimates, since the beginning of this year, Serbia has lost around 750 million euros as a result of a silent “freeze” in foreign investments.
The town of Pirot, in south-east Serbia, for example, is in danger of losing out on 8 million euros of investment if footwear company Geox abandons plans open a factory there.
Representatives of the world’s third-largest shoe manufacturers say they are awaiting the outcome of May 11 parliamentary elections in Serbia before making a final decision on whether to open a factory in Pirot.
The elections in Serbia are being followed with great interest at home and abroad and are widely seen as a potentially crucial contest between embattled pro-European centrists and resurgent nationalists – the latter capitalising on national resentment over the loss of the former province of Kosovo and the perceived failure of economic reforms to lift living standards.
Some companies have abandoned major investments in Serbia without even waiting for the election results – rattled in some cases by the anti-Western riots that briefly gripped Belgrade following Kosovo’s February 17 declaration of independence.
The Austrian company Atek failed to purchase the large but run-down copper mining and smelting complex in Bor, south-east Serbia – as it could not meet the payment deadlines defined by the contract with the Serbian privatisation agency signed this winter.
The explanation given by the Atek CEO Mirko Kovac to media was that Deutsche Bank did not give the Austrian company the bank guarantee to close the deal on time. According to Kovac, the German bank is withdrawing from financing major investment projects in Serbia.
In a statement earlier in April, the bank's Belgrade office however denied it was pulling out of the Balkans.
The Slovene company Tus has also postponed scheduled construction of a large shopping mall in Vranje, in southern Serbia.
General Motors representatives because of the February unrest postponed their announced visit to the Zastava car manufacturer in Kragujevac, central Serbia, local media reported. But, another meeting was held in Germany and it is expected that the company will go ahead with its plans to start assembling its Opel Astra models there later this year.
Portfolio investors began withdrawing back in January, and judging by the decreased involvement of foreign investors in the purchase of stocks and stock index movements, the trend will only increase at least until the elections.
BELEX15, the index of most liquid shares at the Belgrade Stock Exchange, dropped around 30 per cent since the beginning of the year, partly due to the global economic crisis and to the reluctance of investors to trade at Serbia's risky stock market which is also marred with low liquidity.
Economists predict that even if the withdrawal of capital ceases, and its flow into Serbia merely slows down, Serbia will still face a financial crisis.
Serious damage to the economy, primarily through the worsening of expectations by investors and potential investors, has already been done.
Economists say political instability has a clear knock-on impact on the economic realm and any further deterioration in the country’s political troubles could have additional serious consequences to the flow of foreign investments, leading to a rise in prices among other things.
The question marks over Geox are seen as particularly worrying. After talks with Serbian President Boris Tadic in January, the Italian-based business announced it would invest around 8 million euros in building and opening a factory in Pirot.
In the first phase, the firm planned to employ around 1,000 workers, which would have reduced unemployment in the town by a significant 15 per cent.
In Vranje, meanwhile, around 100 local people were expecting to find jobs in the Tus shopping mall.
Last year, the Slovene company paid around 1.5 million euros to the municipality of Vranje for the use of construction land and agreed to pay 2,000 euros monthly to rent the land. The construction of the shopping mall was planned for March, occupying more than 3,000 square metres.
Ivana Jovanovic, representative of Tus in Belgrade, said the company was abandoning all its activities in Serbia as a whole, not only in Vranje.
Goran Nikolic, from the Belgrade based Centre of Scientific and Research Work and Economic Analyses, said reductions in investments affected imports, exports and industrial production, leading first to a slowing-down and then to an absolute drop in GNP.
This was primarily because growth in Gross National Product is mostly induced by local demand, which in Serbia’s case would stagnate without strong loan activity.
Dragan Kostic, director of the Pirot Free Zone, where the Geox factory was supposed to be opened, confirmed that the heads of Geox had decided to postpone any final decision about the factory until the results of the elections.
He said the latest jitters were damaging the Free Zone’s prospects in Pirot, which was hoping to attract more foreign investors in future.
If, after the elections, a nationalist coalition was to be formed, presumably under the auspices of the Serbian Radical Party, the flow of foreign capital would become minimal, Nikolic warned, and the country would be increasingly isolated internationally.
He predicted that the Belgrade stock market would continue operations but without serious movements and with a lower value of stocks. The Serbian currency, the dinar, would come under pressure, and foreign reserves diminish.
Jelena Marinkovic is a journalist with Pirot TV. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.
This article was produced as part of OSCE `s Mission in Serbia Economic Journalism training project in cooperation with BIRN.
