By Vestnik Kavkaza
On October 16 Vladimir Putin visited Belgrade to attend the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the city's liberation from fascists. The heads of Russia and Serbia are now negotiating the future economic relations between the two countries. Recently, the prime minister of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic stressed that, although Serbia wants to become a member of the EU, Belgrade will not support the anti-Russian sanctions - and some European structures have repeatedly hinted that it should.
According to the words of the Serbian Ambassador to Russia, Slavenko Terzic, Belgrade intends to expand economic cooperation with Moscow. "In the economic sphere we have not yet reached the level we have in politics. I think there is great potential to develop the economic relations between our countries. Although we already have some good results", Slavenko Terzic said.
The Ambassador said that there is a big stream of investments coming to Serbia from Russia: the purchase of the Oil Industry of Serbia company by Gazprom Neft, investments of Lukoil, the help of Russian Railways in the repair of Serbian railways, a loan of 800 million dollars that was given to Serbia by Russia in 2013, the potential privatization of the Simpo company, and the potential purchase of the metallurgical plant in Smederovo.
"As for the Serbian side, their investments in Russia are very modest," ambassador Terzic admitted. "I would like to stress the possibilities of our construction companies. I would liked for Serbian companies to have a chance to prove their high quality. And we expect that good opportunities for this will appear during the preparations for the 2018 World Cup." He also stressed that agriculture in Serbia is very developed. The ambassador noted that the main component of exports to Russia is agricultural products: "Vegetables, fruit, meat, canned products and so on. At the moment the export of agricultural products to Russia is growing. And we are very glad about this."
Another big joint project is the construction of the "South Stream" pipeline. "This is not only Serbian or Russian, but a European energy project. Serbia has no doubts about South Stream, we expect its construction by the end of the year."
Speaking about the problems with the construction in Bulgaria, Terzic admitted that without Bulgaria it would be difficult to build South Stream. "I know the doubts of the Bulgarian government, but they are technical and connected to the elections. As far as I know, there is no resistance to South Stream, neither in government, nor in opposition circles. The president of Bulgaria, as far as I know, also supports it. Considering the importance of this project for Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, Austria and Italy and other countries, we need a decision that would be in the interests of all those peoples. I think the final decision in Bulgaria will be made after the elections and we expect it to be in favor of South Stream, the Serbian ambassador said.
He believes it is a huge mistake to use vital energy projects in geopolitical interests for geopolitical conflicts: "We are facing winter, we need to consider the interests of those countries. As for Serbia, it is fully prepared for its creation, we have no doubts."
Speaking about Russian and Serbian friendship, Slavenko Terzic remembered the words of Nicholas II to the Serbian ruler Aleksandar Karageorgievic: "Russia will never abandon Serbia and will always protect it." "We believe that today Russia and Serbia are real allies politically, economically and culturally. We can consider it a contribution to the calm development of Europe and European civilization in general, to which we both belong," the Serbian ambassador stressed.
