From the beginning of 2018, there have been 1,653 foreign-owned companies established in Montenegro. Regardless of their ownership share, currently there are 7,742 such companies operating in Montenegro, according to the Tax Administration.
Economic analyst and professor at the Faculty of Management in Herceg Novi, Vasilije Kostić, said this number was not insignificant by any measure. “Namely, the total number of enterprises in Montenegro is around 25,000, which means that foreign-owned businesses account for one third of total number, which is a lot. However, in terms of needs of Montenegrin economy, it’d be better to have more of them as the economy would thus be more significant, in qualitative and quantitative terms as well.”
“The benefits we’re getting from those companies are enormous as they have extremely strong effect on the overall economy. Even though most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises, don’t underestimate the power of their economic contribution,” underlined Kostić.
The majority of foreign-owned businesses were owned from within Europe, that is, from Russia, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, Germany, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Italy. Most of them were in the consulting & construction sector, followed by the non-specialized wholesale trade.
Number of MNE companies actually foreign-owned:
Turkey: 2,162
Russia: 2,057
Serbia: 1,442
Ukraine: 582
Italy: 600
B&H: 348
Croatia: 215
Germany: 194
