According to 57.4 percent of companies in the trade sector, the business climate in the first quarter of 2025 has worsened compared to the previous quarter. 37.3 percent assess it as unchanged.
As he Serbian Chamber of Commerce survey on the business activity of the domestic economy shows, 18.1 percent of companies expect business climate to worsen in the second quarter. Nearly 47 percent expect it to remain unchanged.
Also, turnover of 54.2 percent of trade companies dropped in in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous quarter, while business turnover of 29.3 percent was unchanged. Turnover of 16.5 percent of respondents even increased compared to the previous quarter. 51.3 percent have high expectations concerning the level of turnover in the second quarter.
As the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia reports, there were totally 370,285 employees in retail and wholesale trade and real estate activities in the fourth quarter of 2024 (an increase of 0.1 percent compared to the same quarter of 2023, 15.9 percent of total employment in Serbia).
Retail trade (211,123) and wholesale trade, excluding motor vehicles and motorcycles (117,528) have most employees. Real estate activities have least employees (9,201), with the highest year-on-year percentage increase in employment (0.5 percent).
Employment levels have remained unchanged for nearly 74 percent of companies in the trade sector in the first quarter of 2025.
Also, wholesale trade, excluding motor vehicles and motorcycles, offers the highest average salary (3.9 percent higher than the national average) with a real growth of 8.2 percent.
Notably, real estate activities offer salaries 4.5 percent lower than the national average, wholesale and retail trade and vehicle repair offer salaries 21.9 percent lower. Only retail salaries exceeded the national average by 29.7 percent.
Also, a net inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) of 117 million euros from resident investments was recorded in wholesale and retail trade and real estate activities in the fourth quarter of 2024. Particularly wholesale trade demonstrated the highest level of non-resident investment activity (54.3 million euros), then followed and retail trade, excluding motor vehicles and motorcycles (35.9 million euros). Opposingly, real estate activities showed the lowest net FDI inflow (9.2 million euros).
NH Logistics SER has been offering IOR Importer of Record and EOR Exporter of Record services since 2001 and is a market leader in Serbia and Eurasia, supporting many clients with their import/export shipments.
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