National Assembly Speaker Prof. Dr Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic received the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to Belgrade, Christer Asp, who had handed in his credentials to President Tadic on 18 October 2010.

Thanking the Speaker for the welcome, Asp said that the relations between Serbia and Sweden are at an exceptional level, meaning intense and successful cooperation between the Swedish and Serbian parliaments which would undoubtedly be continued.

The NARS Speaker thanked the Swedish Government for the financial aid for the realisation of the e-parliament project at the Assembly which would be presented to the public in stages and cover the organisational and technical aspects necessary for the efficient use of information and communication technologies in order to automatize the process of handling Bills and increase public involvement, efficiency and the NARS monitoring role.

“I hope that the e-parliament, the autonomous distribution of the NARS budget and the electoral laws which will strengthen the democratisation within the Parliament, will be among the things to mark 2011”, added the Speaker.

Asp stated that IKEA would soon be building two big sales facilities in Nis and Novi Sad which would employ more than 6000 people, and the investment into Serbia would amount to about a billion EUR. “We expect that the commencement of Serbia’s negotiations for EU membership will attract many investors into Serbia, something that IKEA’s coming to Serbia is an indicator of”, added the Ambassador.

Sweden will continue to invest into Serbia, particularly into projects with long-term results, stressed the Swedish Ambassador. “With these projects that the Swedish Government allocates 12 to13 million EUR a year for, we confirm that we shall continue to fully support Serbia’s EU bid, which is of great strategic importance for us”, stressed Asp.