The International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES)[1], based in Ljubljana, regularly monitors and analyses political, security, economic and social developments in the Middle East, the Balkans and across the world. IFIMES exclusively publishes an article by Bogoljub J. Karić, a prominent entrepreneur, visionary and philanthropist, setting out a vision for Serbia built around a new phase of industrialisation, stronger domestic capital and entrepreneurship, investment in knowledge and the younger generation and an expansion of high value-added exports. At the heart of this approach lies the “Karić model” – a concept that combines economic development and shared value creation with social stability, regional cooperation and lasting peace. Entitled “Serbia must not wait: It is time for a new economic revolution”, the article calls for a long-term strategy to transform Serbia from a country that waits for change into one that actively shapes its own future.
Today, Serbia faces a choice far more consequential than any political slogan or election result: what kind of country do we wish to leave to future generations?
Will we remain a country that loses its young people while exporting raw materials and labour, or will we build a modern, export-oriented economy driven by production and grounded in knowledge, hard work and entrepreneurship?
I believe in a Serbia that manufactures, exports and creates; a country where young people choose to stay, launch businesses and secure their futures and where the state supports entrepreneurs as a partner rather than standing in their way. This is no utopian aspiration. It is a matter of strategy, organisation and political will.
Over the course of more than four decades in business, I have learned one simple lesson: where people, expertise, resources, markets and sound organisation come together, growth can be achieved.
Serbia has educated and hard-working people. It has fertile agricultural land, an industrial tradition, universities, engineers, entrepreneurs, natural resources, a strategic location and access to major European markets.
It also possesses something that money cannot buy – the accumulated experience of generations who knew how to produce, build and export. Serbia’s problem, therefore, is not a lack of potential, but the fact that this potential has yet to be fully harnessed within a coherent development framework. The country can no longer afford to plan from one election cycle to the next. What it needs is a development strategy looking ten, twenty and thirty years ahead.
One of the Serbian economy’s most pressing challenges is that we still fail to generate sufficient added value from our own resources.
While we have agriculture, we must significantly expand our food-processing industry. While we have quality products, we need stronger domestic brands. While we have expertise, we must foster companies capable of utilising that knowledge. While we have an industrial tradition, we must build a next-generation industry.
It is not enough merely to produce wheat, corn, fruit, vegetables or meat. We must transform these raw materials into finished goods, brands, technologies and exports.
Serbia must shift from an economy reliant on raw material exports to one driven by high value-added exports. This means that, wherever possible, every kilogram produced in Serbia should pass through a domestic production chain – from farming and processing to packaging, branding, logistics and export. This is how higher wages are made possible. This is how small and medium-sized enterprises thrive. This is how public revenues grow. This is how young people are encouraged to stay. This is how cities and villages prosper.
Serbia should not seek to revive the industry of the last century. What it needs is a new industrialisation.
Industry in the 21st century means automation, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, energy, modern agriculture, digital technologies, logistics and high value-added manufacturing. We need large-scale enterprises, but also thousands of small and medium-sized domestic firms to serve as their suppliers, partners and exporters.
We should not choose between domestic and foreign capital. We need both. However, the state must pursue a policy that ensures domestic entrepreneurs an equal opportunity to grow, invest, create jobs and export. The state should not simply provide an investor with a subsidy to open a factory. Instead, it should build an ecosystem in which that factory helps foster domestic suppliers, expertise, technology and new companies over the long term. That is the difference between a stand-alone investment and a genuine development policy.
When I speak about Serbia’s future, I am speaking first and foremost about its young people. A country without young people has no future.
We can construct roads, railways, factories and business zones, but without people who want to live and work there, such development cannot be sustained. Investing in our youth is therefore not an expense. It is the most important investment the state can make.
We must forge much stronger links between universities, research institutions and the business sector. Students should know where their knowledge can be applied. Scientists must have the opportunity to turn their research into products. Young entrepreneurs must have access to capital, markets and mentorship.
We should not ask young people merely to excel as students. We must empower them to become creators of new businesses, new technologies and new jobs.
It was from this very experience that I developed the concept I call the “Karić Model for Shared Prosperity”[2].
The principle behind it is simple: development must bring together people, capital, knowledge, markets and shared interests. An economy cannot be reduced to statistics on gross domestic product. It must be a means of providing people with jobs, families with security, young people with prospects and the state with stability.
But this model also has a broader dimension. Wherever people work together, invest together and create shared value, there is less room for conflict and division. Economic cooperation, therefore, is not simply a development policy. It can also serve as a policy for peace.
This is especially important for Serbia and the Western Balkans as a whole. A region burdened for decades by political and historical divisions must find more interests that unite its peoples than those that drive them apart.
Joint investment, infrastructure, energy, the food industry, digital technologies, tourism, education and regional supply chains can help create an environment where cooperation proves far more rewarding than conflict.
Serbia is a European nation and its European perspective is important. Its strategic commitment should be to accelerate integration into the European Union. Yet a European orientation does not mean turning away from the rest of the world.
Serbia should deepen its economic, technological and political cooperation with the European Union, the United States, China, Russia, countries in the Middle East, the Gulf states and other partners. In doing so, it should be guided by its own economic, technological, geopolitical and development interests, while also strengthening regional economic cooperation.
European integration and global economic openness are not mutually exclusive policies. On the contrary, Serbia should leverage its European perspective and geographic position to establish itself as an attractive location for investment, manufacturing, technology and the creation of new companies.
We need capital, but we also need technology. We need markets, but we also need knowledge. We need foreign investment, but also strong domestic enterprises capable of investing abroad themselves in the future.
Serbia must not remain merely a market for others. It must become a competitive partner offering its own goods, technologies, expertise and capital to the world. Only then can we build an economy that is at once integrated into Europe, globally open and capable of charting its own development path.
I am not advocating a return to the past. The world has changed. Technology has changed. Markets have changed, and the very nature of production has changed. Yet the foundational values of development remain unchanged: work, knowledge, responsibility, organisation and vision.
If previous generations were able to build major industrial systems with far less technology, capital and international opportunities than we have today, then we can do the same.
Indeed, we can achieve even more. We simply need to stop dwelling on what cannot be done and instead start talking about what we can do and how we intend to make it happen.
I therefore propose a clear development ambition for Serbia: to build, over the next decade, a modern, production-based and export-oriented economy founded on knowledge, innovation and domestic capital.
This entails increasing the share of manufacturing, significantly boosting the proportion of high value-added products in total exports by 2035, creating new jobs, investing more in research and development, reducing the number of young people leaving the country and better integrating domestic firms into major investment projects.
Such a development policy requires a robust domestic industrial base and modern agriculture, thousands of new small and medium-sized enterprises, closer links between universities and the business sector, greater investment in science, innovation, artificial intelligence and new technologies, as well as energy and infrastructure security. At the same time, Serbia needs to mobilise domestic capital more effectively, increase exports of high value-added products, create conditions for young people to return and deepen regional economic cooperation.
This is more than just an economic programme. It is a programme for the demographic, social and political renewal of Serbia. When people have jobs, families have security. When families have security, young people have a reason to stay. And when young people stay, Serbia has a future.
Serbia does not need another promise. It needs a change in mindset. We do not need an economy of waiting. We need an economy of creation. We should not wait for others to open factories. We need to create domestic companies capable of opening factories both in Serbia and across the world.
We should not export only raw materials and people. We should export products, technology, knowledge and capital. We should not resign ourselves to the emigration of our youth, but rather build a Serbia to which they will return. Nor should we view peace as something dependent solely on political agreements. Peace is also forged through shared interests, jobs, investment and development.
My message to Serbia is therefore simple: we can achieve more. We can revive production, develop domestic companies, boost exports, bring young people back, connect Serbia to the wider world, build an economy that is not dependent solely on external decisions, ensure the rule of law, institutional stability and a predictable business environment and accelerate EU integration and regional economic cooperation.
And we can make Serbia a place where people can once again believe that honest work affords a dignified life and that their knowledge can secure their future. We are not returning Serbia to the past. We are building the Serbia of the future. This is the essence of my vision. It is also the essence of the “Karić Model” – turning work into value, value into development, development into security and security into peace.
The time has come for Serbia to stop waiting for its future and start shaping it for itself through structural economic transformation rooted in new industrialisation, artificial intelligence, robotics, domestic capital, young people and exports. This requires a shift from a model based on cheap labour and foreign capital to one founded on domestic capital, knowledge, technology, productivity and high value-added exports.
About the author
Bogoljub J. Karić, born in 1954 in Peć/Peja, holds a degree in geography from the University of Priština and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Niš. Together with his family, he founded the company “Braća Karić” and, over a career spanning more than four decades, built an international business group active in telecommunications, construction, finance, education, media and trade.
Karić is a member of the IFIMES Advisory Board, president of the International Committee “Nikola Tesla” and is actively involved in United Nations initiatives, including the United Nations Global Marketplace and AI for Good. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024. His business and social engagement is grounded in entrepreneurship, innovation, investment in knowledge, philanthropy and the promotion of international and regional economic cooperation.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of IFIMES.
Ljubljana/Belgrade, 4 September 2026
[1] IFIMES - International Institute for Middle East and Balkan Studies, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has held special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council ECOSOC/UN in New York since 2018, and is the publisher of the international scientific journal "European Perspectives." Available at: https://www.europeanperspectives.org/en
[2] The 'Karić Model' for Shared Prosperity. Available at: https://www.ifimes.org/en/researches/the-karic-model-for-shared-prosperity/5245?q=kari%C4%87+model
