The Foreign Investors Council held the regular annual session of the Assembly summarizing the key achievements and making solid basis for the future growth. Members also adopted Annual and Preliminary Financial Report for 2020. Respecting epidemiological regulations, the Assembly was held via online platform.
Looking into 2020, FIC President and Telenor CEO Mike Michel pointed out that he is ”honoured by the fact that all our work has been done with active engagement of our members, gathering over 120 companies from various corners of the world, all united around the same goal: to create more predictable, competitive, and sustainable business environment in Serbia. Our expectation remains the same: further acceleration of reforms, ie. continuing and accelerating membership negotiations with the EU, work on sustainable fiscal consolidation and improvement in implementing laws, with focus on ten key areas FIC sees as priorities for future: taxes, labour, inspections and food safety, infrastructure and real estate, health, bankruptcy and Forex, with digitalization and e-commerce as this year’s top priorities.”, concluded FIC President.
Assembly meeting gave the opportunity to track the record of past activities and adopt Annual and Preliminary Financial Report for 2020. Looking at the past 11 months, marked by COVID-19 pandemic, our main goals were ensuring the health and safety of employees, maintaining business continuity and promptly and efficiently adapting to the new circumstances. This year also brought us several novelties: 1) reorganisation of the working committees, in order to increase efficiency and overall approach to topics; 2) launching of new event FIC Insight, a presentation of selected important new legislation to interested FIC members and 3) adapting of White Book publication: instead of the score card system, the 2020 edition reflects the impact of COVID-19 on all relevant regulatory areas and indicates adoption priority of the White Book recommendations.
Apart from its best known project, the White Book (400 online participants attended launch event!), FIC was highly active throughout 2020, demonstrated by the following figures – provided daily information to its members on labour and transportation issues during the state of emergency, organized 3 FIC Insights and 2 high-level online conferences on the Digitization and Data Protection Law, rolled out more than 40 regulatory initiatives, held numerous online committee’s meetings, as well as special online expert meetings of FIC committees with Government, other stakeholders, and various regulatory presentations. During a year, FIC had more than 600 media reports, transparently reporting on its recommendations and positions. More information in the FIC Annual Report for 2020 available for free download on the FIC website (www.fic.org.rs).
About FIC: From an independent business association created by 14 companies, we stayed faithful to our principles and grew to gather over 120 companies from all around the globe who have invested more than EUR 36 billion and directly employ over 100,000 people in Serbia compared to EUR 150 million of investments and 3.160 employees in 2003!. FIC main goal is to influence the improvement of business climate in Serbia by making concrete reform proposals and building a business portal for communication with the authorities in Serbia. FIC is also focusing on promoting solid business ethics and high corporate governance principles within the organization and towards local companies, the Government, and other external stakeholders. Through support and active engagement of membership, FIC has proven to be a strict guardian of the business community interests and at the same time a reliable partner to the Government of Serbia and other relevant stakeholders.