Automotive Industry

Sector Highlights

  • Top technical education at all levels means the wide availability of highly-qualified staff
  • The perfect geographic location for efficiently serving EU, SEE and Middle Eastern customers
  • Sufficient capacity for even larger volumes of production

“The attractiveness of the location, logistics advantages, availability of skilled workforce, and a very good support of the Government of the Republic of Serbia and the local community are the main reasons why the Bosch Group decided to invest in the Republic of Serbia”.

Jovanka Jovanovic General Manager of Robert Bosch d.o.o Serbia

Sector Overview

The Serbian automotive industry has a tradition of more than 70 years, dating back to 1939 in the city of Kragujevac, where Zastava, the Serbian producer of motor vehicles, produced automobiles under the license of Fiat. Zastava's suppliers manufactured under strict, high-quality production standards that enabled them to work with other western car manufacturers such as Mercedes, Ford, PSA and Opel.

Automotive

Today, the automotive industry is one of the most prominent sectors in Serbia, accounting for almost 10% of the entire FDI stock in Serbia since 2001. Around 60 international investors have invested over €1.7 billion in the sector, creating more than 27.000 jobs. The Serbian automotive industry supplies almost all major European and some Asian car manufacturers.

The manufacturing of vehicle chassis system parts, especially tires and suspension parts is the most prominent activity in the industry. Electrical system components are another dominant product group with car batteries and wiring installations as the most important products. Also, the production of engine components, mostly casted, is very significant, along with forged and machined parts like camshafts, brake discs, valves and flywheels. Today, automotive industry contributes to country's exports with $2.1 billion.

The largest and the most important investment in the sector is the FIAT project, not only because of the high investment amount, but also because it has helped to attract a number car parts producers to Serbia. It is arguably the most important investment project of the past 20 years and a future engine of growth of the Serbian economy. FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobile) produced over 100,000 vehicles of 500L in 2014 generating almost €1.4 billion of turnover, majority of which was exported to US and EU markets. Hence FIAT took over the first place in the race for the biggest exporter from Serbia.