BELGRADE (Serbia), July 12 (SeeNews) – The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) said the agreement on the launch of a free trade zone with Serbia came into force on July 10.
"After the agreement comes into force, duty-free access to the Serbian market will be opened for the first time for export deliveries of goods from Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. New opportunities for access to the Serbian market for goods from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia will also be created," the EAEU said in its Facebook profile on Friday.
The agreement is very important for Serbia because it opens a market of 180 million people, to which Serbian companies can export under very favourable conditions, Serbia's public broadcaster RTS quoted trade minister Tatjana Matic as saying on Saturday.
"Of course, we have special relations with the EU and it is our most important economic partner and it will remain so. This is a new market that is necessary for us. It is important for us, as we will place there completely different types of products," Matic explained.
Under the agreement, Serbia will be able to export duty-free 2,000 tonnes of cigarettes, approximately 90,000 litres of wine, 400 tonnes of semi-hard and hard cow cheese, unlimited quantities of goat and sheep cheese and unlimited volumes of fruit brandy to the EAEU, the Serbian government said in 2019.
The EAEU is a political and economic union of several states in central and northern Eurasia that once were members of the former Soviet Union - Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.