"Croatia's different trade status will further open the door to Serbia on common competitive markets such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, where customs duties will be charged on Croatian goods," she said at a conference at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce on the potentials and challenges of Serbia's agro-economics following Croatia's EU entry.
Todorovic said trade relations changed with Croatia's EU accession and now Croatia and Serbia would exchange goods in accordance with the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) and not the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA).
With the exception of sugar, beef, wine and trout, Serbia will be able to export to Croatia without quotas or customs duties, as it does to other EU countries, while retaining duties on some agricultural products also after the expiry of a transitional period in 2014.
Serbia and Croatia applied a duty-free approach to 68 per cent of products exchanged until now as part of CEFTA, while preferential quotas applied to the rest.
Todorovic said negotiations were under way to align the SAA with Croatia's request to retain a preferential regime on some food products with Serbia. The biggest stumbling block is the status Croatia wants for tobacco and cigarettes.
Serbia must not yield in the SAA alignment with regard to tobacco imports because that would be detrimental to domestic producers and the foreign investors who bought Serbian tobacco companies, said Djordje Bugarin of the Vojvodina Chamber of Commerce.
He said Croatia exported 10,000 tonnes of tobacco to Serbia over the last eight years, while Serbia's tobacco exports had been 100 times smaller.
He said the agricultural exchange with Croatia within CEFTA had mostly been to Serbia's detriment, with a deficit of US$ 111 million in 2012, suggesting Serbia should utilise as much as possible the chance it had now that Croatia was in the EU.