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Recognizing the problem of the grey economy, AmCham set up the Combating Grey Economy Committee to help establish an efficient legal framework and institutional mechanisms to facilitate effective oversight of illicit trade, discourage grey economy behavior, suppress corrupt practices, and ensure level playing field in the Serbian market.
The Combating Grey Economy Committee assists the Serbian Government to combat illicit trade – both on the traditional markets and the internet, creating a level playing field for law compliant businesses and diminishing the competitiveness of black and grey market players.
Recognizing the problem of the grey economy, AmCham set up the Combating Grey Economy Committee to help establish an efficient legal framework and institutional mechanisms to facilitate effective oversight of illicit trade, discourage grey economy behavior, suppress corrupt practices, and ensure level playing field in the Serbian market.
The Combating Grey Economy Committee assists the Serbian Government to combat illicit trade – both on the traditional markets and the internet, creating a level playing field for law compliant businesses and diminishing the competitiveness of black and grey market players.
Regular performance reporting and amendments to the adopted sequences of procedure, continued capacity building and stronger regional cooperation of enforcement bodies; establishing optimal system for efficient and cost-effective process for warehousing and destroying of seized goods;
Capacity building of Trade Inspection and other enforcement and judicial bodies, in setting up internal procedures and practices for efficient oversight over IP infringements in the area of software piracy;
Enhancing capacity of the prosecution service and courts to effectively prosecute grey economy, illicit trade, and intellectual property infringements, and establish an efficient co-ordination mechanism involving inspection bodies and the judiciary. The Committee will induce cooperation through meetings, trainings and by promoting the alignment of their practices in order to achieve synergetic effects;
Maintaining the spotlight and focus of Government and inspection services on the illicit trade issue and the vulnerability of trade channels in economically and politically challenging period.
AmCham was and still is the only cross sectoral business association that had supported and is still supporting development of the regulatory framework for intellectual property protection, and works on building capacity of state authorities for implementation of the regulations. The result is modern regulatory framework, specialized parts of the administration that are dealing with these issues and decreasing level of IP infringements, despite the oversight challenges the new tech development poses.
The Sequence of procedures for tackling illicit trade online, adopted on AmCham`s initiative in 2018, addressed the inadequate regulatory prerequisites for tracking the delivery of illicit goods via courier services. A year later, the Law on Postal Services was adopted, obliging all postal operators to inspect the user’s identity document when sending shipments, thus providing valuable information to the inspections in charge for tackling illicit trade.
The adoption of the umbrella Law on Inspection Oversight in 2016, in line with the suggestions of the Combating Grey Economy Committee, provided grounds for an efficient mechanism for better coordination of inspectorates – Coordination Commission for Inspections Oversight. Its working groups proved to be an excellent platform for a more constructive public-private dialogue on the key illicit trade risks and focusing the efforts of inspectorates on eliminating them.
Adoption of the Sequence of procedures for supervision of illicit trade of tobacco by the Coordination Commission for Inspections Oversight, became a model for coordinating inspections oversight in other areas such as online illicit trade, base oils, flour, coffee, textile etc.
Building the capacity of the inspections for efficient oversight of the illicit trade on the internet, by providing hardware and software, as well as continuous training support was our contribution to the design and implementation of internet illicit trade oversight in the last three years. The result is that the number of inspected ads has increased almost 100 times since the beginning of the software application, compared to the previous period (2020 and 2021 compared to 2019).
