Brnabic receives president of Italy's Veneto region

BELGRADE - Serbian PM Ana Brnabic on Friday received the president of Italy's Veneto region, Luca Zaia, to discuss continued economic cooperation, investments and the results of Serbia's cooperation with Veneto to date.

With a group of Italian companies, Zaia is a guest at this year's Wine Vision by Open Balkan international wine fair.

Brnabic said Serbia and Italy were strategic partners and that this was best testified by steady progress in economic cooperation.

She added that she expected to see more companies from Italy - especially from Veneto - in Serbia.

She noted the significance of cooperation and experience-sharing in development of artificial intelligence as Italy is one of Europe's leading countries in the field and added that Italian experts had made a major contribution to development of the sector in Serbia.

Serbia is investing major efforts in development of not only artificial intelligence but also innovation technologies, biotech and the construction of the BIO4 campus, which will be one of the largest scientific and research centres in Europe, she said.

Those are also the areas in which Serbia wants to cooperate with Italian experts, a statement released by the government press service quoted Brnabic as saying.

Zaia thanked Brnabic for the support Serbia was providing to Italian companies, some of which have been operating in the country for more than two decades.

He commended efforts by the Serbian government to create a good business climate and help the country's economic development.

Noting that he saw Serbia as a neighbour and a very important partner, Zaia offered the sharing of Veneto's experiences in digitalisation of the health care sector and other sectors through expert visits, training and concrete exchange of know-how.