The Economic Downturn Prompts Belgrade Chinese to Shut Up Shop

Belgrade :

After more than three years of dwindling sales, more and more Chinese traders are leaving Belgrade.

Su Lin is busy cleaning the floor of his half empty shoe shop in a Chinese shopping centre in New Belgrade’s Block 70. On the left hand side of the shop there are three shelves with a scattering of shoes and stacked up against the opposite wall are about 30 boxes. That’s all he has left in his shop.

The little stock he has was bought from another trader who previously rented the shop before deciding it was time to leave the Serbian capital.

“There is no money, no money at all. No one is buying,” says Su Lin who left China five years ago and has been trading in Serbia ever since. “Only five people have even passed by the shop since I opened an hour ago. I don’t want to order any more shoes as I simply don’t know if I will be able to sell them.”

When he first arrived in Belgrade, the shopping centre was crowded every day. Now, he says, it is not even busy at weekends. “I hoped that before New Year’s Eve things would improve but they didn’t. It was just like today, not a single person came in to buy anything.”

Lin is just one of the many Chinese who are thinking that it’s time to pack their bags and try their luck elsewhere.

Block 70 is a magnate for Chinese traders. It is home to two shopping centres built a decade ago and packed to the rafters with all kinds of goods from China. Until recently they were also a mecca for Serbian shoppers hunting for bargains.

According to the shopping centres’ Chinese shopkeepers however, the amount of money that Serbs have left in their pockets after paying for essentials is now so little that even cheap Chinese products are too expensive for them.

Three Serbian shop assistants say that the turnover in the shops where they work has fallen drastically since 2008.

“I know my boss is thinking of leaving Belgrade and just waiting for the best opportunity,” says one. “I hope he’ll let me know in time so I can look for another job.”

Relations with China date back to the Tito era. With a few ups and downs, Yugoslavia and China had friendly relations since 1948.

After the country’s demise though relations became even closer for Serbia during the heyday of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević. His government relaxed visa requirements for Chinese citizens who began arriving in Serbia in the late '90s. The biggest influx of Chinese immigrants came between 1998 and 2002.

There are no exact figures on how many Chinese currently live in Belgrade, but according to some estimates three years ago there were about 6,000 in the Serbian capital.

Liu Feng Dun, vice president of the Chinese Union of Serbia, says that when he first arrived in Belgrade, 14 years ago, Serbia had a stable market and Belgraders had money to spend.

Back in China, says Dun, Yugoslavia has a reputation for having a welcoming, educated population that enjoy a high standard of living.

Dun, a medical and marketing graduate decided to come to Serbia when he was still a young boy.

“I watched the Yugoslav movie Walter Defends Sarajevo at least ten times. It was huge in China,” says Dun laughing.

Dun says that once one family decided to move they were quickly followed by another. In some places 20 per cent of the population packed up and moved to Serbia, where they received a friendly welcome.

“People were really kind and life was good. Chinese shops were crowded as shoppers wanted Chinese products,” says Dun.

However, the economic crisis has slashed Serbs’ purchasing power. New customs tariffs that have forced up the price of Chinese goods have also added to the woes of Chinese shopkeepers, just as they began to find themselves facing stiff competition from cheap goods imported from Turkey and Taiwan.

“Traders have a lot of unsold stock and dwindling profits, so they are deciding to leave,” says Dun who adds that even though rents in Block 70 have fallen in the past three years to just a few hundred euros a month it’s not enough to convince traders to stay.

“When I came here you could buy one German mark for three dinars, but now a euro is worth 105 dinars,” he says. “That’s the difference between doing business here ten years ago and today. Bad business doesn’t make for a happy life.”

The Chinese started leaving Serbia in 2008, but in 2010 and 2011 a record breaking 3,000 Chinese left the country. The majority went to Poland and Croatia, but they also headed out to oil rich African countries, Latin America and the U.S.

“Many Chinese are literally on standby, waiting to see how things will pan out in Serbia. I expect that a lot of them will leave in the next two years.”