Serbia’s economy is transitional and it is dominated by the market forces mainly.
Their economy was impacted highly by the civil
war, but now it is improving with time.
The economy of Serbia is service based which accounts to 2/3 rd of the GDP.
As of now, this country holds the 34th rank among the 44 European countries.
Their overall score is below the regional average,
but it is definitely above the world average.
The economic freedom score of this country is 63.9
which makes it to rank 69th freest in 2019 index.
Nominal GDP of Serbia reached to $47.654 billion in 2018 while
the purchasing power parity reached at $112.512 billion.
Agriculture and industry both contribute to the economy of Serbia.
Mining, automotive industry, energy, machinery, etc.
are the strongest sectors in the economy.
They are involved in trading as well and their main
trading partners are Germany, Russia, China and Italy.
Tech industry in Serbia
While all other industries are growing over time in this
country, the tech industry too is booming to a great extent.
In fact, it is IT that is helping this country to stand up
from the economic stagnation following the Balkan wars.
It is really surprising that the IT sector only
contributes to 10% of the GDP of this country alone.
The technology exports in Serbia were more than $1 billion in
2018 which witnessed a huge growth from the previous year.
The IT industries are developing software in Serbia for almost all kind
of industries including agriculture, medicine, online game testing, etc.
Major companies like IBM, Microsoft and Intel have already established
development centers in Serbia and many are waiting for so.
The current president of Serbia has announced that the IT sector in their
country is so promising which is actually the future of their economy.
Rule of law
The foreign investors and Serbia citizens have
full rights of ownership of the private property.
But, unfortunately, the enforcement of those rights is actually very slow.
However, a new law regarding the enforcement is
adopted in 2018 which will make things much simpler.
But again, political influences and other barriers like corruption
can act as an obstacle in the growth of Serbia economy.
Open markets
Serbia is involved in exports and imports both.
The main exports of this country are iron, steel, rubber, cloth,
automobiles, fruits, vegetables, electronic appliances and more.
The total value of exports and imports is equal to 113.7% of the GDP.
The applied tariff rate is 6.5%.
But the overall trade freedom is undercut by the non-tariff barriers.
Almost 77% of the Serbian adults have
accounts with the formal banking institution.
Overall this country is experiencing a good economic growth.
They have witnessed an average growth in GDP of 1.3% for the last 5 years.
The GDP structure of the country in 2015 was as follows:
Industry-25.2%
Services- 67.1% and
Agriculture-7.7%
This rate is expected to increase over the coming years and they
can make the country’s ranking definitely higher in the world.