(ANSA) - TRIESTE, JAN 24 - 'In Serbia, there are 1,200 Italian companies, the trade is worth €4 bn, and there are 5,000 Serbian employees in our companies. Italy is the second biggest investor and, after Germany, Serbia's most important European economic partner. But it is not enough to look at these figures; we need to look at trends and have a vision considering the Serbian government's priorities''.

Italy's ambassador to Serbia, Luca Gori, told ANSA on the sidelines of the Western Balkans conference in Trieste, explaining that "we have to catch up with this new prospect, moving from our traditionally strong sectors, such as textiles and automotive, to the new priority areas for the Serbian government: in addition to infrastructure, green transition, power diversification, digitization, which is an extremely important sector for Serbia, and agriculture." "To these sectors, we will dedicate the Business Forum to be held March 21 in Belgrade," which "will be the catalyst for this new strategy we want to adopt due to our need to catch up on new sectors." The ambassador also recalled the International Agricultural Fair in Novi Sad in May, where Italy will be a partner country. These "are the two moments we will try to give our economic relationship with Serbia a swerve." (ANSA).