Minister of Economic Development Jakov Milatović participated yesterday in a working dinner as part of the conference: "Western Balkans: #OneRegionOneMarket - A Step towards Common Market of the EU" in Novi Sad.

Last year there was a big economic downturn, and today, I can proudly say that Montenegro is experiencing great economic growth and that Montenegro is among the leaders in the region when it comes to stabilising economic activity, which is the result of a great recovery of the tourist season, which happened thanks to regional cooperation and the openness of Montenegro's borders to all countries in the region, the Minister emphasised.

The Minister said that the story of regional cooperation is a story of economic development of each country in the region and that Montenegro is very interested in having an even stronger role in this process in the future.

Montenegro strongly supports and promotes the Common Regional Market and the Government of Montenegro is making additional efforts to accelerate this process. In order for the economy of the entire region of the Western Balkans to be a success story, we believe that every country must reach for even greater reforms, Milatović added.

He is convinced that regional cooperation is crucial in the process of European integration, which means that more intensive work should be done to strengthen regional cooperation.

The future of our economies, not only in Montenegro and Serbia, but in all Western Balkan countries, is integration into a single market within which the free flow of goods and services without business barriers will take place, and which as such will be part of the common European market. Our countries and our markets are small, which is why we should create a single market and a single investment space. Serbia has made a lot of progress in the economy in the previous period. We in Montenegro are happy with that progress. In the coming period, we want to dedicate ourselves even more strongly to economic cooperation, joint projects and to present to your economy the benefits of investing in Montenegro. The coronavirus pandemic has taught us that economies and government representatives must work closely together to achieve the best results, Milatović concluded.