First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia Ivica Dacic, who is paying an official visit to the Republic of Portugal, today met with his host, Minister of Foreign Affairs Augusto Santos Silva.

"I would like to express great satisfaction with my visit to Portugal. The relations with Portugal are of extreme importance to us given the long tradition of our diplomatic relations.
Diplomatic relations spanning 136 years is a huge asset and we wish to work closely to further promote these relations.

We expect a return visit from the President of Portugal to Serbia. My visit was a return visit to the visit of the former Foreign Minister and I now expect my new colleague to pay us a visit.
We would like to improve our economic cooperation. Our foreign trade last year was EUR 50 million, which is good, but it could be better.

It is very important that my colleague will host a lunch to which he invited representatives of various companies and now it is up to us in Belgrade to take the next step implying that we should put the plans of various companies into operation in terms of economic cooperation.

Furthermore, we would like to have better communication, consultations and coordination regarding political, regional and global issues and to support each other at international level.

We would like to join the group of Portuguese-speaking countries (CPLP) as an observer since almost all of these countries are our good friends and we would like to have as good relations with them as possible.

I would like to thank Portugal for its strong support to our European integration.

I informed my colleague of the situation in the region, the existing problems and Serbia's commitment to be a factor of stability as well as our wish to resolve all outstanding questions in a peaceful manner.

Portugal is a country that has a lot of understanding for Serbian positions", the Serbian Foreign Minister said after the talks with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Portugal.