On April 12, Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao met with Tomislav Momirovic, Minister of Domestic and Foreign Trade of Serbia. The two sides exchanged views on deepening China-Serbia economic cooperation and trade and signed a memorandum of understanding to start negotiations on a free trade agreement between the two countries. Ling Ji, Vice Minister of Commerce and Deputy China International Trade Representative, also attended the meeting.
Wang Wentao said that Serbia is a iron-clad friend of China. In recent years, under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China and Serbia have continuously strengthened strategic alignment and built together the “Belt and Road Initiative”, and pursued deeper and more substantive economic and trade cooperation, creating a model of cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries. China stands ready to work with Serbia to take the China-Serbia FTA negotiation as an opportunity to further promote the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment between the two countries, stimulate the potential of bilateral economic and trade cooperation, comprehensively enhance China-Serbia economic cooperation and trade, and inject more impetus into deepening comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.
Tomislav Momirovic said that Serbia regards cooperation with China as the priority of its economic development. In recent years, bilateral trade has developed rapidly, and Serbia's exports to China have grown fast. The cooperation between the two countries on investment and infrastructure has yielded fruitful results. The Serbia-China FTA will create a sound environment and provide a strong guarantee for the development of bilateral economic cooperation and trade. Serbia stands to work together with China to promote progress in the FTA negotiations at an early date.
After the meeting, the two sides signed the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China and the Ministry of Domestic and Foreign Trade of the Republic of Serbia on Launching the China-Serbia Free Trade Agreement negotiations, launching the FTA negotiations between the two countries.
