Belgrade/Brussels, 12 February 2020 – Serbia’s Ministry of Finance and Euroclear have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish the appropriate market conditions for efficient local currency sovereign debt issuance. The intention is for Serbia to eventually create a Euroclearable link, which will facilitate international investment into the Serbian bond market.
Achieving Euroclearability helps to facilitate access of foreign investors into the domestic market in a more secure and standardised way which will result in an increase in capital, higher trading volumes and lower yields in secondary markets. This in turn can drive further capital market efficiencies including a possible credit rating upgrade and inclusion in various bond indices.
Sinisa Mali, Serbia’s Minister of Finance said: "Following tremendous success in the international markets, and landmark activities aimed at reigniting the local capital markets in 2019, we are thrilled to formalize our cooperation with Euroclear, which is an exciting start to 2020. This partnership is an important piece in our overall strategy to drive down the cost and increase demand for our sovereign debt, grow and diversify the international investor base, improve preconditions necessary for further capital market development in the Republic of Serbia, and ultimately secure an investment grade rating in the near term.”
Sudip Chatterjee, Head of Global Capital Markets, Euroclear commented: “We are extremely pleased to be working with the Serbian Ministry of Finance. Our goal is to support the long term objective of the Serbian market of increasing liquidity, diversifying the international investor base and strengthening the local sovereign debt market.”
