“As of today some 60% of goods traded between China and Serbia will be exempted from customs duties, and in the next five to 15 years an additional exemption of customs duties is expected for 30% of goods,” Serbia’s minister for domestic and foreign trade, Tomislav Momirović, wrote on the Serbian government website.
The deal could have broad geopolitical ramifications. China already “owns mines and factories across Serbia and has lent billions for roads, bridges, and new facilities through its Belt and Road Initiative, which finances infrastructure development,” said Professor David Phillips, a security expert from Georgetown University, writing in The Hill.
A geopolitical strategy game between the U.S. and Chinese interests being played out in Serbia, according to Phillips, has big business at the heart of it. Tesla, Google and Apple “are all lining up” to tap into the output of lithium mines in the west of the country, which would provide the international giants a degree of independence from the world’s largest supplier, China.
Lithium is used in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones.
A plot in western Serbia set to be mined by U.K.-Australian company Rio Tinto has deposits valued at some $6.5 billion. It contains 200 million metric tonnes of lithium, the U.S. Geographical Survey has estimated.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said in mid-June his government was about to give the go-ahead for mining to start, after several years of delay.
The main stumbling block has been environmental protests, which peaked in riots in 2020 and 2021. The past weekend saw further demonstrations.
Protestors outside the Rio Tinto mine say highly-toxic wastewater from the site will poison the surrounding Mačva valley.
Activist Marijana Petković, quoted by the balkangreenenergy.com website, claimed there was proof that local officials were giving tacit agreement for dangerous waste from tests at the mine to be dumped in landfills.
Her protest movement is demanding the Serbian government ban the mining of lithium and boron in the area, warning that otherwise demonstrators will block rail lines.
