Serbia is the most attractive country for investors in the world: We are the first in a number of open work positions through investments

Low operating costs in countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia have proven to be attractive to investors

Serbia ranks first in the world by the number of jobs opened by foreign direct investment (FDI) in relation to the country's population, according to the new IBM report "Global location trends".

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The countries from Central and South East Europe hold the told 10 places and they are fighting hard for them, according to an intellinews.com site, citing the IBM report.

The three other countries in the top of the list are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Macedonia, which, with the exception of Slovenia, fall behind with their competitors from Central Europe, an indication that the efforts of the governments in the region to attract the investors pays off, estimated in the report.

Low operating costs in countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Serbia have also proved to be attractive to investors, as the lack of staff in labor markets in other Central and East Europea countries increases costs.

Serbia continues to attract significant investments in key sectors such as the textile, transport, chemical, and electronics industries. It is therefore not surprising that almost 80 percent of the total jobs created through FDI fall on production activities, the report says.

- The continuation of the strong performance of Serbia and the wider Western Balkans according to this scale testifies to the growing success of the region in attracting foreign investments and cementing its position in the global value chain. Although the performance of individual countries varies from one year to the next, the region as a whole record a sustained high level of foreign investors' interest, according to the IBM study.

However, although it is still in the top ten destinations, the number of newly created jobs per million inhabitants in Macedonia has dropped significantly in 2017 compared to the period 2012-2016, indicating that political turmoil that culminated in a violent invasion in parliament last year, discouraged some investors from investing, the report adds.

Other highly ranked CEE countries on this list are Lithuania (2), Hungary (7), Slovakia (8) and Latvia (11).

Like the Western Balkans, "Baltic countries continue to record a high level of incoming investment, with Lithuania in second place, while Estonia and Latvia are among the top 20 globally."

This region, according to the study, is particularly successful in attracting investments in the field of information technology.

At the same time, Hungary has become an attractive destination for investors, because the rates of personal income tax and corporate income tax in that country are among the lowest in Europe, and also the tax rate on social contributions is lower, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which oversees foreign investments.

According to the data which are not adjusted to the number of citizens, the United States is ranked first on the list of jobs created by IBM through foreign investment, China is second and Mexico is third.

(Telegraf.co.uk / Tanjug)