PRESS CONFERENCE AT BELGRADE AIRPORT FOLLOWING ATHENS CONFERENCE

Belgrade, 10 February 2005 – This evening, right after our delegation returned from Athens, a press conference was organized at Belgrade airport. The occasion was successful work of the conference “Greece-Serbia Partnership Initiative” that took place at the Athens Hilton, under the organization of “Lifeline Hellas”, a humanitarian organization whose patron is HRH Princess Katherine. The conference was under the auspices of the Governments and Chambers of Commerce of the two countries.

HRH Crown Prince Alexander II greeted everyone at the press conference and pointed out that the presentations of our country and its economic potentials were carried out in a correct manner, and added:

“I wish to thank the President of our country, Mr. Boris Tadic, the Government of Serbia and our Ministers for their participation in the conference. I also thank to the Foundation of Princess Katherine and the humanitarian organization “Lifeline” that organized this conference. The conference that we have organized in Athens was very successful and we had the opportunity to talk about the current situation in our country, about the opportunities for investments and the creation of partnership relations. We should immediately start to think about organizing another conference like this one, which had such success, because we all worked together on the same goal: the presentation of the economic possibilities of our country abroad and a better future for our country and its citizens” – emphasized the Crown Prince and he expressed his gratitude to the former Ministers that were also present at the conference in Athens.

HE Milan Parivodic, Minister of International Economic Relations stated that this was the best-organized conference abroad until now, and added:

“The friendship and great interest that the Greek commerce showed for our delegation is without precedent. We can say that no state-economy delegation of ours had met such great success like the one that we were part of in Athens. For this, we can be grateful to Their Royal Highnesses, the Crown Prince Alexander and Princess Katherine, who laid their reputation on line in order to make this conference a success. The Government of Serbia sent a solid delegation, practically from all the fields of interest for the Serbian economy, ministers or their deputies. We showed to Greek commerce that we could be a serious and important as a partner of Greek economy and political life of Greece at the Balkan Peninsula. The message that we were sending is that we are a serious and stable country with a serious economy, legal system and that we are reliable partners and a friend to them. Their response and interest were great. The Greek economy attended with the strongest business people, industrials and traders from the whole Greece. Very good contacts have been established, and some concrete business arrangements have been made. This morning, the most important financial magazine in Greece published on the front page that in the following period there will be around 1.2 billion euros going from Greece to Serbia”.

Minister Parivodic pointed to the fact that there was established a business forum of Greek and Serbian business people, under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce of Belgrade, and the Athens Chamber of Commerce, and under the auspices of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, whose members are the most distinguished investors from Greece.

HE Radomir Naumov, the Minister of Mining and Energy expressed his satisfaction regarding the organization of the conference and pointed out that the first impressions, when it comes to the Ministry of Mining and Energy, are very favourable. Minister Naumov announced the arrival of the Head of “Hellenic Petroleum” within the next week when they will be discussing the possibilities of further cooperation.

“In his speech HE Dimitris Sioufas, Minister of Development of Greece, sent a clear message concerning the future development of Serbia as a future member of the European Union, and referred to the funds that will be activated and that will be used jointly. When it comes to the field of energy, great interest was shown for investments as well as for dialog about the petroleum sector” – Minister Naumov emphasized.

Afterwards, Mrs. Zora Simovic, Deputy Minister of Economy, Mr. Goran Andjelic, assistant of Minister of Finance, Mrs. Dragana Curcic and Mr. Vladimir Ujdun, Deputy and assistant of Minister of Capital Investments, Mr. Danilo Golubovic, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Mr. Vlajko Senic, assistant of Minister of Trade, Tourism and Services addressed the media, and pointed out their pleasure with the organization of this conference, which will certainly help the development of our economy in all its industries.

The delegation returned from Athens today also included Mr. Aleksandar Vlahovic, president of EKI Investment, Mr. Goran Pitic, president of the Economic Institute, Mrs. Jasmina Hadzi-Abdic, member of the delegation of Ministry of International Economic Relations, and Mr. Djurdje Ninkovic and Dusan Babac, members of the Advisory Bodies of the Crown.