BELGRADE, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) — Serbia and India are dedicated to expanding bilateral cooperation and promoting mutual business connections – Venkaiah Naidu, Vice President of India and Aleksandar Vucic, President of Serbia agreed at their meeting in Belgrade on Saturday.
At the press conference after the meeting Naidu reminded that this is his first visit to a European country since assuming duty as vice president, and reminded that it is also the first visit of a high Indian official to Serbia since 1989 (visit of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi).
“My visit has a special importance to it, because the two countries mark 70 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations”, he said, explaining that the meeting with Vucic was “about all important aspects as well as global and regional issues”.
According to Naidu, India and Serbia have been developing plans to advance partnership in many areas, and at this meeting the two officials expressed “dedication to working on the expansion of bilateral cooperation in the area of economy, agriculture, food processing, defense, science and technology, infrastructure, tourism and the pharmaceutical industry”.
India wishes to have closer cooperation with Serbia and will continue to support the territorial integrity of Serbia,” Naidu stressed.
Vucic expressed admiration for recent India’s “extraordinary economic results”, and said he expected the two countries to upgrade their political and economic relations in the future.
Stressing the importance of developing relations between Serbia and “one of the top-ranked countries when it comes to economic growth”, Vucic noted that the trade exchange has been increasing over the past years, and last year it summed up to 198.1 million USD.
Vucic pointed out that Serbia has high expectations from Indian investors, especially in the area of digitalization and software and estimated that “slow-paced negotiations will start to give results in following years”.
Moreover, he highlighted the possibilities of realizing ongoing ideas for military-technical cooperation that could give an incentive to overall exchange in trade and technology.
“We liberated visa regime for the citizens of India, and we hope to establish a direct airline connection … so that connections and contacts can be established between our peoples and businessmen,” Vucic said.
After the meeting, delegations signed two agreements — the agreement on cooperation between Serbia and India in the field of health, plants and plant quarantine and the agreement on air transport.
A business forum Serbia-India is scheduled for the afternoon, while Naidu is announced to address Serbian parliament at a special session.
(Photo: DNA India)
