Seoul: Ambassador Grbić meets with the President of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency

KOTRA President Yu congratulated Ambassador Grbić on his appointment and expressed confidence that relations between the Republic of Serbia and the Republic of Korea would further develop in the upcoming period.

Ambassador Grbić thanked KOTRA President Yu for his kind reception and emphasised the importance of this agency for the overall development of relations between the two countries, especially in terms of economic and investment cooperation.

Ambassador Grbić stated that the KOTRA office in Belgrade, since its opening in 2015, had been extremely active and engaged in promoting Serbia as a very favourable destination for investments. He especially expressed his gratitude for their help with and coordination of the procurement and transport of medical equipment which Serbia had purchased from Korea in the midst of the 2020 pandemic, when it was extremely difficult to obtain the necessary equipment and devices of that kind on the global market.

Ambassador Grbić also thanked KOTRA for the help it provides to Serbian companies to participate in Korean fairs. He highlighted that in 2021, Serbia was the country with the largest volume of foreign direct investment in Southeast Europe, and which had significant capacities in the field of IT, a rich tradition in the automotive industry, a quality and educated workforce, and a high percentage of English-speaking population. He added that Serbia, apart from being a favourable destination for opening production plants, was the most favourable destination for Korean companies to open research and development centres. He emphasised that now was the right time for Korean companies to invest more in Serbia.

KONTRA President Yu expressed satisfaction with the strengthening of the partnership in the economic sphere and conveyed that in the last three years alone, the trade exchange between the two countries had more than doubled, and that the presence of Korean companies in Serbia was growing. He pointed out that KOTRA would continue to encourage Korean companies to invest in Serbia and to promote the potential of the Serbian market. He also said that he was acquainted with the participation of Korean IT companies in projects in Serbia, as well as the partnership of the Republic of Korea with the Government of the Republic of Serbia in the field of digitalisation and e-government projects.

Ambassador Grbić and KONTRA President Yu spent the rest of their meeting discussing ways to further increase foreign trade between the two countries.