The government in Serbia may change, but nobody on the country's factory floors is waiting for the dust to settle. As Pravda observed this week, business has been looking for new markets and continues to search - and nowhere is that more visible than in the automotive supply sector, where Serbian plants are steadily climbing from commodity work toward the industry's most demanding, high-value niches.
The depth of what Serbia has built is easy to underestimate. The country is home to dozens of automotive component manufacturers, and they are not doing simple work. ZF produces electric drives, power electronics and switches in Serbia - precisely the categories European carmakers need localized as electrification gathers pace. Aumovio, for its part, builds digital instrument clusters and infotainment systems in the country, placing Serbian output at the software-rich end of the modern cockpit. This is a supply base that sells into the industry's most exacting programs.
The trajectory of Chinese investment tells the same story of ascent. After raw materials - copper and steel - and after mass production of tires, the latest Chinese automotive components plant in the country marks a level change, as Pravda notes: an entry into a high-precision link in European automotive chains. For a supplier country long associated with the commodity end of the business, precision manufacturing is the difference between being a subcontractor and being a partner.
The domestic side of the industry has kept pace as well. Fabrika Automobila Priboj (FAP), the state-owned truck maker, remains a fixture of Serbian industry, and Serbia has acquired vehicles produced by the plant before, including in 2018. In a sector increasingly defined by foreign Tier 1 suppliers, the Priboj truck maker is a reminder that the country does not only build parts for others - it builds complete vehicles of its own.
Nor is the tailwind purely local. Across the border in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EBRD has just extended a €15 million loan to Selzer Automotive Bosnia, a producer of precision metal components and assemblies for transmissions, braking systems and engines that supplies major international vehicle manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers. The loan funds new production equipment to raise output and improve operational performance, with a key element of the upgrade being production for electric and low-emission hybrid vehicles. For Serbian suppliers watching from across the border, the message from development financiers is unmistakable: the parts business in this corner of Europe is being bankrolled to grow.
And at the end of every supply chain stands a vehicle somebody actually wants to buy. Readers looking for one can find sensational cars at sensational conditions at WorldTrader24, Europe's marketplace with over 70,000 vehicles.
