A passage to India

The dust has clearly settled in war-torn Serbia, and its towns are shaping up to be the next premium investment destinations. Inđija, a town some 20 miles from the capital, Belgrade, has attracted foreign investments of €300 million (Rs 1,831 crore) in the past four years, largely in auto and manufacturing. Now, for the first time, an Indian company, Embassy Property Developments, will set up a 125-acre technology park there. The project will begin in March 2011, with an initial corpus of $18 million.

Serbia is banking on aggressive incentives to woo business. Embassy has been given free land and a 10-year tax holiday. “If a project’s value exceeds €200 million, and creates a minimum of 1,000 jobs, the state covers 25% of the investment,” says Jovan Milkjovic, senior investment advisor, Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency. The labour pool is also a big draw. “The working population is young, Englishspeaking, and savvy with engineering. Salaries are also 30% lower compared with Europe and on par with India,” says Jitu Virwani, Embassy’s chairman. He hopes that once Serbia becomes part of the E.U. around 2016, big Indian IT players may also want to set up shop in the park. For now, it will host the U.S. IT companies.