PARTNERS: ITALY & SERBIA
INTERVIEW
PATRIZIO DEI TOS, PRESIDENT OF CONFINDUSTRIA SERBIA
We Recognised Common
GOALS & WORKED AS A TEAM Everything we achieved stems from teamwork and mutual support. Now it is important to move forward and define our priorities clearly
C
OVID-19 represents a global problem and as a con sequence it seriously affects the global economy. Unfortunately, the negative consequences of the pandemic in the first half of the year did not sparetrade and business relations between Italy and Serbia. Italy was under “lockdown” in the period from March to May, during which – statistically speaking – production levels fell by
20
29.9% compared to the first three months of the year. Since the lockdown applied to industry too, in that period production was reduced to manufacturing of only essential goods and this affected the operations of Italian subsidiaries in Serbia,” says Patrizio Dei Tos, President of Confindustria Serbia. “In the first days of the Coronavirus crisis in Serbia, our member companies recorded a decline in exports and productivity, some of them up to 30 per cent, but once the issues of mobility, transport, logistics and import-export procedures between the two countries were regulated, companies returned to a steady business flow.” In the meantime, which sectors had been able to reorganise under the new circumstances and which of them will be most seriously affected? - In my opinion it is important to emphasise that, soon after the declaration of the epidemic and the introduction of a
