Richard Robinson’s Post

After almost 3 1/2 years as the BSCC’s Executive Director in Belgrade, I leave Serbia this week for good. After a period when the Chamber had not been very active in Serbia and with the arrival of David Landsman as Chair I joined as the board relaunched the organisation in early 2020. Working with Jadranka, we quickly developed plans beginning by the the Chamber attending the Kopaonik Business Forum. The start of Covid a month later changed these dramatically. But not everything! With the support of our remaining Serbia based members, we slowly restarted activities - initially online. New members started joining and we strengthened our institutional links including joining the British Chambers of Commerce Global Business Network in the UK and the Foreign Investors Council in Serbia. It was slow work to begin with, but we increased our capacity & activities and significantly improved our social media presence as everything opened up. This started a virtuous circle: more activities leading to a higher profile leading to more members leading to more activities... At the same time, the UK was sorting out its post Brexit trading arrangements. After a slightly slow start, Serbia and the UK negotiated a new Partnership Trade Co-operation Agreement which gave some certainty to the new arrangements for bilateral trade and provided for tariff free trade in most cases. We supported our members providing information about the new arrangements and occasionally talking to ministries on our members’ behalf. Our increase in capacity enabled the BSCC to do more trade promotion. Sadly, Serbia has no trade presence in the UK and Jadranka has worked hard to fill the gap, particularly in the food and drink sector. Our presence at the International Food and Drink Exhibition in London has grown and enabled us to work with FAO on a project to support Serbian food and drink exporters break into the notoriously difficult UK market. It has been great fun. We have grown by around 50% in each of the last 3 years and continue to grow healthily. This is so different from 3 years ago. This would not have been possible without the support of our members, old and new. I also wish to thank the BSCC's wonderful team - Tijana & Alex in Belgrade, and last but not least, Jadranka in London - all of us working as one team together. I shall miss Belgrade but will be staying with the BSCC as a non-executive director. The BSCC will be recruiting a new Executive Director Belgrade after the summer. I feel sure that the Chamber will go on from strength to strength.

The next steps for the British Chambers of Commerce. One which will strengthen the voice of British businesses talking to the UK government and one which will benefit The British-Serbian Chamber of Commerce - BSCC and its members

The British media has recently been discussing whether the UK should (re)join the Pan Euro Med (PEM) convention on cumulation in respect of rules of origin. The The British-Serbian Chamber of Commerce - BSCC (& in fact the Privredna komora Srbije | Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia too) strongly supports this. As this is all a little geeky, here is a link to Sam Lowe’s explanation of the PEM Convention and how it would help the Lithium/electric vehicle supply chain in his newsletter, Most Favoured Nation, https://lnkd.in/dafRwwZH The Financial Times recently reported (Brussels urges UK to join trade pact to ease risk of post-Brexit car tariffs https://on.ft.com/3MGoifQ) that the European Commission was also briefing to encourage the U.K. to join but the timing is complicated with the current UK/EU TCA (the Trade Cooperation or Brexit Agreement) clauses needing attention before both the review of the TCA in 2025 and the current revision of the PEM Convention clauses. One for all U.K.,Serbian & Balkan exporters to watch

This is the first in a series of mentoring sessions for W Balkan food & drink producers wishing to break into the UK market using UK experts. This is a project funded by the FAO and the EBRD.

Whilst we wait for politicians in the UK to confirm their support and for the EU and the UK to implement the agreement, The BCC's William Bain makes good points about the next steps

If you know of any company in #Bosnia, #NorthernMacedonia or #Serbia that is in the food & drink sector, please make them aware. We have experts on the U.K. food, drink and Horeca sectors lined waiting to give advice

A summary of where and how to sign the various condolence books for HM Queen Elizabeth II.