According to EqualOcean, on May 8, 2024, during a state visit to Serbia, Chinese President, together with Serbian President Vucic, announced to the press that the China-Serbia Free Trade Agreement will officially come into effect on July 1 this year. They also issued a joint statement between China and Serbia on deepening and enhancing the comprehensive strategic partnership and building a new era of China-Serbia community with a shared future.
The declaration concerning the economic and trade relations between the two countries mainly relates to the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative and the deepening of the China-Serbia community with a shared future:
China and Serbia will take the opportunity of entering a new stage of high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative to deepen and expand cooperation in various fields such as economy, trade, investment, technology, innovation, digitalization, and information communication, jointly safeguarding the security of projects and personnel. Both sides welcome the positive development trend of China-Serbia trade and are willing to promote balanced development of bilateral trade. Both sides will further strengthen pragmatic cooperation in areas such as transportation infrastructure construction, connectivity, clean energy, industrial investment, agriculture, and economic and trade cooperation zones. Both sides are willing to effectively carry out cooperation in the fields of digital economy and green development, actively promoting the implementation of specific cooperation projects through the mechanism of the China-Serbia Investment Cooperation Working Group. Both sides are willing to strengthen financial cooperation, support the early opening of a Serbian Renminbi clearing bank, promote the use of local currency settlement in bilateral trade and investment, and encourage financial institutions of both countries to provide financing support and financial services for trade and investment cooperation. Both sides attach great importance to cooperation in the field of information communication technology and are willing to strengthen bilateral cooperation in communication infrastructure, 5G, cloud computing, big data, intelligent photovoltaics, and other fields, promoting high-quality development in the field of information communication, etc.
China and Serbia have good diplomatic relations, with political mutual trust, and Serbia is China's first comprehensive strategic partner in Central and Eastern Europe. The two countries have a considerable consensus on global political situations. At the same time, the two countries have closely cooperated in economic and trade aspects, with stable and fruitful bilateral trade cooperation. The prospects for the development of bilateral relations are broad, providing further impetus for the development of the Belt and Road Initiative.