During the next meeting of the Eurasian Economic Commission the board members are planning to initiate negotiations with the authorities of Serbia regarding the signing of an agreement on free trade.
Currently, Serbia has a free trade agreement with 3 of 5 member states of the Eurasian Union: Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Armenia and Kyrgyzstan do not have one.
Background
The Eurasian Economic union is an international organization for regional economic integration. It has an international legal personality and was created on January 01, 2015 on the basis of the Customs Union and the EurAsEc. The member countries of this Union are Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
Serbia has shown many times its interest in delivering its products on a duty free basis to the Eurasian Union, in particular, the automobiles Fiat, which are produced in Serbia. Especially because the action of the present free trade agreement between Russia and Serbia does not cover them.
The Fiat factory (former factory "Zastava") is located in the Serbian city Kragujevac, 110 km to the South of Belgrade. The factory was started in 2012. At present, its staff amounts to 3 thousand employees. Fiat possesses 67 % of shares, the 33 % of the rest of the shares is possessed by the Serbian government. The capacities of this factory allow producing up to 200 thousand automobiles per year.
At the moment neither the exact date of coming into force of the agreement nor the products, which are going to be subject of the agreement, nor the possible delivery date are not stipulated. However, the fact that the free trade agreement is already concluded with the majority of the Eurasian Union member states it is planned that the negotiations will be going on at a dynamic pace.
