Bogoljub Karić argues Serbia’s real choice is stay-and-make versus leave-and-export raw materials and people. Assets he lists: skills, land, industry memory, universities, location, EU-market access. Missing piece: a 10–30 year production strategy, not election-cycle plans.

Shift every kilogram possible through a domestic chain—farm, process, brand, logistics, export. “New industrialisation” means AI, robotics, biotech, energy, digital and logistics, plus SMEs as suppliers to both domestic and foreign plants. Subsidies alone are not a development policy; the factory should spawn local firms and skills.

Youth, university–business links and the “Karić Model” (shared work, capital, markets as a peace tool in the Western Balkans). Stay open to the EU and the U.S., China, Russia and the Gulf. Ambition for 2035: more manufacturing and high-value exports, less youth exit, more R&D and regional supply chains. Rule of law and predictable rules are treated as part of the same package.

Today, Serbia faces a choice far more consequential than any political slogan or election result: what kind of country do we wish to leave to future generations?

Will we remain a country that loses its young people while exporting raw materials and labour, or will we build a modern, export-oriented economy driven by production and grounded in knowledge, hard work and entrepreneurship?

I believe in a Serbia that manufactures, exports and creates; a country where young people choose to stay, launch businesses and secure their futures and where the state supports entrepreneurs as a partner rather than standing in their way. This is no utopian aspiration. It is a matter of strategy, organisation and political will. 

Serbia has what it takes

Over the course of more than four decades in business, I have learned one simple lesson: where people, expertise, resources, markets and sound organisation come together, growth can be achieved.

Serbia has educated and hard-working people. It has fertile agricultural land, an industrial tradition, universities, engineers, entrepreneurs, natural resources, a strategic location and access to major European markets.

It also possesses something that money cannot buy – the accumulated experience of generations who knew how to produce, build and export. Serbia’s problem, therefore, is not a lack of potential, but the fact that this potential has yet to be fully harnessed within a coherent development framework. The country can no longer afford to plan from one election cycle to the next. What it needs is a development strategy looking ten, twenty and thirty years ahead.

From a country of raw materials to a country of finished products

One of the Serbian economy’s most pressing challenges is that we still fail to generate sufficient added value from our own resources.

While we have agriculture, we must significantly expand our food-processing industry. While we have quality products, we need stronger domestic brands. While we have expertise, we must foster companies capable of utilising that knowledge. While we have an industrial tradition, we must build a next-generation industry.

It is not enough merely to produce wheat, corn, fruit, vegetables or meat. We must transform these raw materials into finished goods, brands, technologies and exports.

Serbia must shift from an economy reliant on raw material exports to one driven by high value-added exports. This means that, wherever possible, every kilogram produced in Serbia should pass through a domestic production chain – from farming and processing to packaging, branding, logistics and export. This is how higher wages are made possible. This is how small and........

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