Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) - Professional Consulting Services for Business Process Outsourcing

Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) was created in 2001 by the Government of the Republic of Serbia to support foreign companies seeking to set up or expand their business presence in Serbia and Serbian companies doing business abroad.

Consulting service for outsourcing business operations

SIEPA has 55 multilingual employees working at its headquarters in Belgrade and they handle projects from all over the world. SIEPA provides professional consulting services to firms interested in setting up business operations in Serbia and focuses on all the relevant issues for the decision making process.

SIEPA's contacts network can link investors to all levels of government as well as private service providers. It has created a supplier and location database, which is free on its website so clients can get quick and up-to-date information.

Hosted shared service centres in Serbia

With many countries and regions reaching saturation point, companies are now faced with a multitude of issues, including high staff turnover rates, rising costs of operation, a lack of the required language skills and poor cultural assimilation. In these and many other respects, Serbia holds a whole range of aces up its sleeve and is emerging as a new hot spot for hosting shared service centres.

It is located at the heart of CEE and shares the same time zone as most West European countries (GMT+1) so it offers obvious advantages when compared to offshore regions like India.

The workforce is reliable and has a robust skills base. Serbia also has a business culture stemming from strong cultural and business ties with the West. The country has a level of multilingualism with many people speaking English. People are highly trained, productive and ready to work. Various government-sponsored programmes are creating a qualified labour pool through training and development to ensure a constant stream of work-ready staff.

Serbian business process outsourcing success stories

The most recent Serbian business process outsourcing success stories include the opening of a 300-person international service centre for Sitel, the world leader in outsourced customer care services and the excellence centre by NCR.

World-renowned companies transfer operations to Serbia

In March 2011 Serbia's long-term credit rating with the S&P was raised to BB with a stable outlook. The country is soon to receive EU candidate status to be followed by a negotiation process.

Many world-renowned companies have recognised the potential and have already transferred their operations to Serbia.

World-renowned companies with operations in Serbia include:

• FIAT Group
• Panasonic
• Sagem
• Sitel
• Pompea
• Nestle

Since 2000, net inward FDI has reached $16bn. For some, Serbia serves as a manufacturing hub that enables duty-free exports to a market of almost one billion people encompassing the EU, the US, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Southeast Europe, the European Free Trade Agreement states, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Others were lured by the possibility of capitalising on an educated and abundant labour pool and a booming local market of close to 7.5 million people.

Quality staff and low business operation costs

The quality of Serbia's intellectual capital is based on extensive relationships with Western economies stretching back decades, as well as an educational system generating multilingual and IT-literate people. Technical education is particularly strong, with a third of graduates coming from technical universities. Furthermore, secondary school pupils are consistently among the best performers at international contests in maths, physics and IT.

Operating costs for doing business in Serbia are significantly lower than those in other CEE countries. Serbia's tax system is highly conducive to investment, offering one of Europe's lowest corporate profit tax rates of 10% and a package of tax incentives and breaks to encourage high profit rates and easy start-up. Labour costs in Serbia are comparable to the rest of the Western Balkan region and stand at less than half the level of East European EU-member states.

SIEPA customer service

SIEPA would like to invite you to contact its expert staff for assistance with outsourcing your business. SIEPA is ready to offer information on the general investment environment as well as targeted legal and industry-specific advisory services. Its services are tailor-made to best match your company's needs and requests.