Mirjana Kojić, The Secretary General CCIS: Strong connection in challenging times

Being part of our Chamber means being part of a large business family

This challenging year has surprised the whole world. Taken aback by the new situation which emerged due to the COVID-19 pandemic, every individual, entrepreneur, company, association and almost every segment of the private and public structures tried to react in the best possible way within their framework and possibilities, to overcome the crisis and maintain stability. Following the examples of developed countries, Serbian Government intervened on two occasions with specific sets of economic measures and provided assistance to businesses in order to mitigate the consequences of COVID-19.

Through a constant dialogue within the global network of Italian chambers – Assocamerestero and Sistema Italia – our Chamber reacted in accordance with the situation, adhering to the recommended measures and adapting its activities and initiatives while providing maximum support to companies in dealing with both small and big issues they were experiencing. In these difficult times, we tried to assist every company that approached us, but first and foremost, our member companies.

During and after the state of emergency in Serbia, we intensified our dissemination activities. In its bilingual newsletter, the Chamber provided important information on current events, from cross-border movements, through the companies’ needs and offers, to information on measures and regulations of the Government of Serbia and the Government of Italy. This was followed by online activities that became our daily routine. We did everything we possibly could and thanks to the very good cooperation with our members, whom we would like to extend our gratitude, we jointly organized many webinars covering current topics. Some of these topics are: work safety in the light of emergencies and providing a better business environment; the importance of online business; legal interpretations of regulations and application of economic measures; documentation preparation; application of various procedures related to tax policy; new financing opportunities for companies from EU funds and EU projects, cyber security and many others. The dialogue between businesses and institutions continued this time in an online format. This initiative was done in cooperation with another three bilateral chambers in Serbia and it was very well-received as it was always providing unambiguous responses to the business community.

During previous months, Italian companies’ interest in placing their products on the Serbian market has notably increased, mostly in agri-food, pharmaceutical, chemical, machine, textile and furniture industries. This trend confirms that Serbia is still a very interesting market. I would like to underline that Serbian companies have also had many export and import related requests towards Italy.

Business Scouting and Business Networking powerful means to identify new opportunities, to establish new contacts and organize business missions

We missed most the live events, our gatherings and company visits. We are compensating this, as much as possible, with frequent communication and information exchange with our members. During previous months, this way of working brought us even closer to each other and made us stronger, making us all a part of one big business family under the auspices of the Chamber.

We hope that soon the situation in our country and worldwide will stabilize and that we will see this pandemic ends, in order to be able to contribute to even better cooperation between Italy and Serbia. Our Business Scouting and Business Networking initiatives are enabling companies to identify business opportunities, to establish new business contacts, to conduct targeted market researches and to organize business missions and B2B meetings. These initiatives can accelerate the consolidation of new investments and trade relations between companies, in our case, between Italy and Serbia.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.