USA lifts remaining sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro

July 1, 2005 U.S. President George W. Bush suspended all sanctions on Serbia and Montenegro by a decree yesterday. Serbia and Montenegro was under various degrees of economic and other sanctions by the United Nations and individual countries since 1992.

Serbia and Montenegro will now enjoy the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences which includes allowing duty-free import of more then 4600 products. Economic relations between two countries were stabilized in 2003 when Serbia and Montenegro gained a status of most favoured nation.

"We did a study and came to a conclusion that free market exists in Serbia, that there are laws to protect American investors, and we based our decision on that," the U.S. ambassador in Belgrade Michael Polt said.

The President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marović, wrote a letter to Bush thanking him for his move.