Economy of Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital of Serbia.

Belgrade is located in the center of South East Europe, at the intersection of the strategic European transportation corridors Pan-European Corridor X and Pan-European Corridor VII, linking Western and Central Europe with the Middle East. It is lying at the confluence of the Sava and the Danube river.

As of 2022, the total nominal GDP of Belgrade stood at 26.2 billion USD, which equates to 15,533 euros per capita.[1] In 2022, Belgrade comprised 40.0% of Serbia's total GDP.

## History

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### Growth of investments in Belgrade

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The troubled political and economic transition during the 1990s left Belgrade, like the rest of the country, severely affected by an internationally imposed trade embargo. The hyperinflation of the Yugoslav dinar, the highest inflation ever recorded in the world,[2][3] decimated the city's economy In the competition for European cities and regions of the future in 2006 and 2007, organized by the Financial Times magazine, Belgrade was proclaimed "City of the Future in Southern Europe" on 16 March in Cannes.

The latest greenfield investments are also being increasingly realized in Zemun, the part of the city which will soon be on a par, according to investments, with New Belgrade, where the largest construction works have been carried out so far. The mayor expects foreign capital to start arriving faster in Belgrade and Serbia, which is also the precondition for the opening of new jobs and the start of new programs.

The competition for "Cities and Regions of the Future" is organized by the specialized edition of the Financial Times for foreign direct investments – FDI Magazine, and this prestigious annual award is presented for all the continents. The award also represents a recommendation of the world’s leading economic magazine for the locations where one should invest, since it is based on criteria such as economic potential, operating costs, human resources, transport, IT and telecommunication, as well as the quality of life for foreign investors.

## Overview

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The following table gives a preview of total number of registered people employed in legal entities per their core activity (as of 2022):[4]

Activity  | Total

|

Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 2,797
Mining and quarrying | 8,889
Manufacturing | 70,171
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply | 8,748
Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities | 9,281
Construction | 46,893
Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles | 134,760
Transportation and storage | 46,862
Accommodation and food services | 32,383
Information and communication | 61,696
Financial and insurance activities | 22,655
Real estate activities | 4,547
Professional, scientific and technical activities | 66,877
Administrative and support service activities | 77,171
Public administration and defense; compulsory social security | 81,810
Education | 47,124
Human health and social work activities | 51,788
Arts, entertainment and recreation | 17,003
Other service activities | 16,862
Individual agricultural workers | 2,025
Total | 810,343

### Business

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In the recent years, investment climate in Belgrade and Serbia have been improved. The country is in the process of negotiating the accession to the European Union, and is the world’s leading reformer as stated by the World Bank.[citation needed] In addition, the pace of structural reforms is ahead of that in other transition countries according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.[citation needed] Stocks are traded at the Belgrade Stock Exchange.

Most of notable Serbian companies are based in Belgrade, such as Air Serbia, AIK Banka, Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, Delhaize Serbia, Delta Holding, Dunav osiguranje, Elektromreža Srbije, Elektroprivreda Srbije, Energoprojekt holding, Frikom, Galenika, Generali Osiguranje, Hesteel Serbia, Imlek, MK Group, Nordeus, Pošta Srbije, Putevi Srbije, Serbia Broadband, Serbian Railways, Telekom Srbija, Telenor Srbija, Yugoimport SDPR, Štark and many others.

Also, Belgrade is a regional center for AXA,[5] Carlsberg,[6] CBRE Group,[7] Delhaize Group,[8] ComTrade Group, General Electric,[9] Huawei,[10] Japan Tobacco, Kraft Foods,[11] Maquet,[12] Motorola, MTV Adria,[13] Mubadala, NCR Corporation, OMV, Procter & Gamble,[14] Samsung, IKEA, Ericsson, Colliers International, CB Richard Ellis, SNC-Lavalin, Sinohydro Corporation,[15] Société Générale, Unilever, Zepter International and many others.[16]

### Intellectual capital

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As a leading educational center in Serbia comprising 62 university-level institutions, Belgrade boasts well educated, fast learning, multilingual and IT literate labor force. Over 8,000 students graduate from Belgrade University every year, with 1/3 of them adding to the traditionally strong engineer base. According to the Gallup International, the percentage of English speakers is the highest in Central and Eastern Europe, and an increasing number of western business schools open their affiliates in Belgrade.

## Sectors

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### Tourism and gastronomy

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Since early 2000s, Belgrade has been gradually attracting foreign tourists with its vibrant cultural events and nightlife. Around 2000 restaurants, coffee shops, bars and nightlife venues are located in both downtown, uptown and suburban Belgrade. In addition, it has hosted many important sport competitions in the past, with multiple well-organized basketball and tennis courts.

### Information Technology

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Main article: Belgrade IT sector

With 6,924 companies in the IT sector (2013 data[update]), Belgrade is one of the information technology centers in this part of Europe, with strong growth.[17] Microsoft Development Center Serbia, located in Belgrade, was, at the time of its establishment, the fifth such center in the world.[18] Many world IT companies choose Belgrade as regional or European center such as Asus,[19] Intel,[20] Dell,[21] Huawei, NCR[22] etc. What brought companies like Microsoft in the first place was a large pool of talented engineers and mathematicians in a lower wage country and these major investments had by 2018 generated over € Billion in exports.[23] Nordeus, a local video game startup, is one of Europe's fastest growing gaming companies.[24] In just five years of operation, Nordeus has grown to over 150 employees and €64 million of yearly sales.[25] Another local startup, FishingBooker, was founded in 2013 and now employs over 80 people. Like Nordeus, FishingBooker is a bootstrapped startup.[26] FishingBooker has been described as "the world’s largest online travel company that enables you to find and book fishing trips."[27] In just the first quarter of 2016, more than US$65 million has been raised by Serbian startups including US$45 million for Seven Bridges (a Bioinformatics firm) and US$14 million for Vast (a data analysis firm).[28][29] Also in 2016, a Belgrade-based website AskGamblers which is generating over €810,000 in revenue and €620,000 in profits was sold to Catena Media for €15 million, all 30 employees will continue to work as normal.[30] The startup community is helped by a non profit organization called Startit which is an active community that acts as an incubator for new companies. Startit raised US$108,000 from its Kickstarter campaign in 2015, allowing it to expand its Belgrade center and build a second center in Inđija which was completed February 2016.[31] Other exiting developments include an Agriculture Drone startup that uses drones for land surveying, TeleSkin an app which can identify and track skin cancer and there was another successful Kickstarter for Hexiwear a customizable smartwatch for developers.[32] Progress in Serbian IT over the last six years has been tremendous with the fast growth only increasing as Serbia's many talented engineers, scientists and mathematicians break into this new industry where gross salaries average €2,000 per month (far more than the €600 national average).[33]

## References

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1. ^ "REGIONAL GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT Regions and areas of the Republic of Serbia, " (PDF). stat.gov.rs (in Serbian). Statistical Office of Serbia. Retrieved 29 March 2024.
2. ^ Watkins, Thayer. "The Worst Episode of Hyperinflation in History: Yugoslavia 1993–94". Episodes of Hyperinflation. San José State University Department of Economics. Archived from the original on 7 December 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
3. ^ Taylor, Bryan. "Countries that Suffered the Greatest Inflation in the Twentieth century". The Century of Inflation. Global Financial Data. pp. 8, 10. Archived from the original (Word document) on 8 August 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2007.
4. ^ "MUNICIPALITIES AND REGIONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA, 2023" (PDF). stat.gov.rs. Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
5. ^ "Svjetski lider u osiguranju Aksa odabrao Beograd za centar regiona". Trazimkredit.com. 17 June 2011. Archived from the original on 17 January 2012. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
6. ^ "Beograd konkuriše Beču". Politika. 21 February 2008. Retrieved 5 May 2009.
7. ^ "People and Offices".
8. ^ "Novi poslovni objekat u Beogradu sa parking mestima za bicikle, tuševima i restoranima | Gradnja - Portal građevinarstva i arhitekture". Gradnja.rs. 20 August 2012. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
9. ^ "Gaetano Massara, generalni direktor "General Electric" za Jugoistočnu Evropu - Kako "gvozdeni čovek" iz Rima živi i radi u Beogradu". www.ekapija.com. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
10. ^ Istrate, Dominik (24 April 2019). "Huawei to launch digital hub in Serbia". emerging-europe.com. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
11. ^ "Beograd će biti regionalni centar:: emportal:: Ekonomske vesti iz Srbije". Emportal.rs. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 16 November 2010.
12. ^ Слободан Костић. "Више не плачем када идем из Београда : Економија : ПОЛИТИКА". Politika.rs. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
13. ^ "Vesti dana: MTV se preselio u Beograd: POLITIKA". Politika.rs. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
14. ^ "Procter&Gamble Belgrade". Pgbalkans.com. Retrieved 16 November 2010.[dead link]
15. ^ "Biz - Vesti - Lice kineske ekspanzije u Srbiji". B92. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
16. ^ "JTI u Srbiju ulaže oko $100 mil" (in Serbian). B92 Biz. 24 April 2007. Archived from the original on 24 May 2007. Retrieved 19 May 2007.
17. ^ "U Beogradu radi 120.000 firmi". Večernje Novosti. 23 April 2013. Retrieved 4 November 2013.
18. ^ "Microsoft Development Center Serbia". Microsoft.com. 1 April 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2013.
19. ^ "Asus otvorio regionalni centar u Beogradu". Emportal.rs. Archived from the original on 22 May 2011. Retrieved 16 November 2010.
20. ^ "Centar kompanije 'Intel' za Balkan u Beogradu – Srbija deo 'Intel World Ahead Program'". E kapija. Retrieved 7 July 2009.
21. ^ Beograd, Ana Vlahović (25 September 2011). "Srbija centar IT industrije". Pressonline.rs. Archived from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
22. ^ NCR planira da udvostruči broj zaposlenih u Srbiji u 2014 (in Serbian), eKapija, 24 July 2013, retrieved 4 November 2013
23. ^ "Izvoz IT sektora u 2018. Prvi put premašio milijardu evra: U naredne 3 godine svim osnovcima digitalni udžbenici".
24. ^ "Srpski Zakerberg: Branko je napustio "Majkrosft" i u Srbiji napravio firmu koja je partner "Fejsbuka"". Blic.rs.
25. ^ "Подаци о обвезнику". fi.apr.gov.rs.
26. ^ "Vukan Simić (FishingBooker): Svaki dan na posao dolazi 80 ljudi koji veruju u ono što stvaramo – to je naš najveći uspeh". Netokracija.rs. 20 May 2019.
27. ^ "Be Ready to Learn and Catch a CEO's Attention". nevena.blog. 13 March 2019.
28. ^ "Srpsko-američki Seven Bridges uzeo investiciju od 45.000.000$ za brži razvoj terapija za rak". 16 February 2016.
29. ^ "Vast uzeo investiciju od 14 miliona dolara za razvoj B2C proizvoda i širenje u Beogradu". 12 February 2016.
30. ^ "Domaći proizvod AskGamblers prodat za 15 miliona evra". 4 April 2016.
31. ^ "Startit Centar — otvaranje na jesen". startit.rs. Archived from the original on 1 August 2015.
32. ^ "Srpski AgroDrone razvija poljoprivredu budućnosti". 24 December 2015.
33. ^ "Serbia's technical talent attracts global investors". www.ft.com. Retrieved 18 February 2024.