Alipay to arrive to Serbia – Prime Minister Brnabic announces arrival of mobile payments platform

In a few months, payment through Alipay, a Chinese platform for payments through a mobile phone app, will become available in Serbia. This was announced on November 6 by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic after her visit to the company Alibaba in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. As she said, Serbia would thereby join the company of one billion people who make purchases this way.

– Negotiations are in progress. On the Serbian side, the negotiations are had by the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications and they are successful – Brnabic said. – They are talking to a commercial bank and I expect this to be finished soon. The next step would be to establish a logistics center. We intend to continue our negotiations with Alibaba, but also with other companies, so that they would open their development centers in Serbia. I can't claim that they will open a development center, but we will give it our best.

She also pointed out that intellectual property tax in Serbia was only 3%, the lowest in Europe.

Serbian Innovations Minister Nenad Popovic has also announced important news. He revealed that the construction of an industrial park would begin in late March in Borca.

– The Chinese bank has announced that it would support all Chinese companies, which is a good sign for other companies which decide to build here as well. This will be the largest industrial park in south and southeastern Europe – Popovic said.

While visiting Alibaba and another two technology centers, the Serbian delegation had the opportunity to test facial scanning devices, which asses the user's age, weight, gender and appearance.

Transformation in two decades

The Chinese province of Zhejiang is known for development based on digital economy. As much as 41.5% of the GDP in this region comes from digital economy.

– There is probably no better place in the world to witness advanced technologies and have talks with potential partners about investments in Serbia – Brnabic said. – The companies I visited are only two decades old, and they employ up to 100,000 people now, which shows that, when there's support by the state, an open economy system and a good environment for innovations, the whole world can be changed in 25 years, let alone a single country.

High-speed train for important guests

The Serbian delegation traveled from Shanghai to Hangzhou, a city covered by the 5G network project, by a high-speed train. The distance of around 200 kilometers, same as between Belgrade and Subotica, was traveled in under 45 minutes. The train ran at around 250 km/h and can develop speeds of up to 400 km/h.

Ministarstvo turizma i omladine Republike Srbije

Alipay

Ministry of Trade

Alibaba

payment through app

Ana Brnabić

Zhejiang