UK–Serbia trade tops £1.2 billion as services and ICT deepen ties

UK–Serbia economic ties continued to expand through 2025, with total bilateral trade reaching approximately £1.2 billion—an increase that matters not just for headline volumes, but for what it signals about Serbia’s evolving place in European supply chains amid geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty.

Trade growth lifts the UK into surplus

In a factsheet released on 14 May 2026, the UK Department for Business and Trade reported that trade in goods and services between the two countries rose by 7.5% year-on-year, adding about £87 million in current prices compared with the previous reporting period.

The composition of flows also shifted. UK exports to Serbia climbed to £649 million, up 10.4%, while imports from Serbia increased by 4.5% to roughly £598 million. The result was a UK trade surplus of approximately £51 million—reversing an earlier pattern in which Serbia more often held stronger export positioning in bilateral trade.

Integration accelerates beyond traditional EU core markets

Looking at the longer-term trend, UK–Serbia trade has more than doubled since 2016, when bilateral trade stood at about £518 million. It rose steadily to £1.247 billion in 2025, illustrating how Serbia is deepening integration into Western European commercial networks beyond traditional EU-core markets.

Services and technology take a larger role

A key development is the growing weight of services and technology within bilateral commerce. Services made up approximately 45.6% of UK exports to Serbia and about 41% of UK imports from Serbia.

Telecommunications, computer and information services were among the fastest-growing categories: UK exports of those services to Serbia increased by 76.5% year-on-year. The report links this expansion to Serbia’s broader transformation into a regional ICT and engineering hub, suggesting that the relationship is increasingly hybrid—combining software engineering, telecommunications, business services and advanced industrial supply chains rather than relying solely on conventional manufacturing exchange.

Goods trade remains anchored in industry—especially automotive and machinery

The goods side reinforces that picture. The UK’s leading exports to Serbia included beverages and tobacco, mechanical power generators, industrial vehicles and pharmaceutical products. On the Serbian side, leading exports to the UK included vegetables and fruit, automotive-related products, industrial machinery and electrical goods.

The automotive and machinery segments stand out because they align with Serbia’s increasing integration into European industrial production networks—while ICT-related service growth supports its emergence as a competitive digital-services exporter within Europe’s broader outsourcing and engineering ecosystem.

Remote delivery dominates cross-border services

The report also highlights how much of the services relationship is delivered remotely. Approximately 74.1% of UK services exports to Serbia and 63.1% of UK services imports from Serbia were conducted through “Mode 1” trade—cross-border delivery without physical movement of people.

For investors and policymakers in Serbia, that structure carries strategic implications: digital services exports are described as structurally less exposed to energy-price volatility, transport disruptions and future carbon-border mechanisms such as CBAM compared with traditional manufacturing exports.

Investment ties are smaller but gradually maturing

Direct investment integration remains relatively modest but stable. UK foreign direct investment stock in Serbia reached about £227 million by end-2024, while Serbian FDI stock in the UK stood at roughly £245 million. While these levels are small globally, they point to a gradually maturing bilateral investment relationship.

Macroeconomic outlook: gradual progress alongside vulnerabilities

The factsheet’s macroeconomic projections suggest continued improvement in Serbia’s global position. IMF forecasts cited project nominal GDP rising from approximately $90.1 billion in 2024 to $122 billion by 2027, while GDP per capita is expected to increase from about $13,700 to around $19,000 over the same period.

At the same time, structural vulnerabilities remain visible: Serbia’s current account deficit is expected to stay elevated at between approximately 4% and 5.7% of GDP, while total investment as a share of GDP is projected to decline from 25% in 2024 toward about 21.7% by 2031.

Taken together, those projections imply that growth will likely continue depending heavily on foreign investment inflows, industrial export performance and external financing conditions—making the timing of deeper UK–Serbia commercial integration particularly relevant for Serbia’s broader economic positioning as Europe restructures under decarbonization pressures, AI expansion demands, supply-chain diversification needs and geopolitical fragmentation.

A diversified role emerges between EU and non-EU markets

The report characterizes Serbia increasingly as more than a low-cost manufacturing destination: it is emerging as a diversified mid-sized economy integrating simultaneously into industrial production networks, logistics channels, technology platforms and digital-services value chains positioned between EU and non-EU markets.

With industrial goods still central but digital services becoming progressively more important within bilateral trade—from telecommunications growth to remote Mode 1 delivery—the data suggest a dual-track structure that could help balance manufacturing employment support with greater resilience against carbon-related barriers affecting heavy industry across Europe.