Let us imagine Serbia in 2035. Two different Serbia’s exist — born from two different policy choices, two different strategic mindsets, and two different levels of courage.
In the first scenario, Serbia chose the comfortable path. Mining investments arrived, ore was extracted, royalties were paid, and exports increased. The country recorded positive years, foreign exchange improved, and political leaders proudly referenced billions in mining. Lithium was shipped abroad for refining. Copper left with limited domestic processing. Industrial minerals largely exited as raw or semi-processed materials. Serbia became internationally relevant — but only as a supplier.
By 2035 in this scenario, Serbia is economically stronger than before, but structurally constrained. Employment remains concentrated in traditional sectors and public administration. A few mining regions boom, but the broader economy depends heavily on commodity cycles. When prices fall, budgets tighten. When global demand shifts, Serbia adjusts, but Serbia does not decide. It participates in someone else’s value chain but does not own enough of it.
Universities produce talent, but too much of it emigrates because the domestic economy lacks high-value industrial absorption. Serbia exports raw materials and human capital. Governed competently perhaps, but not transformed. A resource country. Relevant, respectable, but not decisive.
Now let us step into the second Serbia.
This Serbia in 2035 chose complexity instead of convenience. It demanded processing as part of every major mining arrangement. It negotiated not only royalties but value creation. Serbia built lithium chemical refineries, copper alloy and advanced metallurgy capacity, materials science clusters, and industrial minerals-based advanced manufacturing industries.
Processing created manufacturing. Manufacturing created ecosystems. Ecosystems created research institutions, specialized suppliers, service industries, export sophistication, and technological competence. Serbia did not simply create jobs. It created economic gravity. Investors stopped coming to Serbia for cost reasons and started coming for competence reasons.
This Serbia’s workforce looks different. Universities cooperate with industry. Vocational schools produce proud, highly employable technicians. The industrial middle class strengthens. Knowledge stays. Foreign engineers begin arriving. Serbia ceases to be a training ground for others’ economies. It becomes a destination.
Energy policy adapted to industrial needs. Environmental governance matured, driving technological responsibility instead of resisting industry. Citizens see not only mines, but value chains, structural benefit, legitimacy and tangible modernisation. Europe sees Serbia not as a raw material dependency, but as an industrial ally.
Budgets stabilize because the economy produces not only commodities, but manufactured value. GDP structure modernizes. Export profile matures. Serbia negotiates with Europe and the world from a place of industrial identity, not geological coincidence.
This Serbia is not perfect. No industrial nation is. But it is sovereign in a way that purely resource countries never are. It shapes its destiny. It does not merely react to it.
Between these two futures lies the present moment. A window of decision. A period in which mining laws, industrial policy, environmental frameworks, investment agreements, and national ambition converge into one defining question:
Will Serbia be a place where valuable things are found, or a place where valuable things are made?
By 2035, history will have chosen — but today, Serbia still can.
Elevated by clarion.engineer