Location Bratislava On June 10, 2013 during the 5th meeting of the Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation between the Slovak Republic and the Republic of Serbia Economic Forum held in Belgrade bilateral talks of Slovak and Serbian companies, which were organized by the Slovak Agency for Investment and Trade Development (SARIO), Slovak Atlantic Commission and the Serbian Chamber of Commerce of Serbia. During the Economic Forum B2B negotiations of representatives of Slovak and Serbian companies in the energy, IT, automotive, mechanical and chemical engineering, environmental protection took place. Economic The Business Forum and B2B meetings were opened by Zorana Mihajlović, Minister of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection of Serbia, Tomáš Malatinský, Minister of Economy of Slovak Republic, Željko Sertić, chairman of Serbian Chamber of Economy and Róbert Šimončič, CEO of Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO). All speakers appreciated the common activities of Slovak and Serbian companies leading to dynamic development of mutual economic and business cooperation between both countries. Especially Róbert Šimončič highlighted the importance of economic cooperation development primarily in the fields of energy and infrastructure, but also in automotive industry, engineering and IT. Slovak enterprises possess qualitative and very modern technologies which could help the Serbian companies to increase productivity, profitability and competitiveness of their products on international markets. Forming the common enterprises seems to be the strategic contribution for both countries while expanding to the third markets, at which they could be a strong competition for industrial developed countries. 17 Slovak and 28 Serbian companies participated at B2B meetings. The working group on trade and investment between the SARIO and SIEPA reached the high level of mutual cooperation relationship and also was expressed readiness to strengthen activities aimed to establishing economic partnerships in both countries leading to the implementation of investment and production-cooperation projects and joint access to the markets of third countries. During the first day of negotiations ZK Robert Šimončič, CEO of SARIO met the partners of Serbian agency SIEPA Belgrade Božidar Laganin, CEO and Peter Strojkov of regional agency VIP Novi Sad of Vojvodina. They discussed the function and activities of the agencies while acquiring foreign investors and supporting the foreign trade on international markets.
