Radar: State gets little revenue from Belgrade Waterfront

The Belgrade Waterfront is a project supported by the Serbian authorities with financing from Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi-based Eagle Hills Waterfront Investment LLC owns 67 percent of Belgrade Waterfront. That company received 6.7 million Euro in dividends and Serbia got just 7.4 percent or 3.3 million Euro of the profits of 44.6 million for its 33 percent share.

The jointly-owned company paid two installments of 3.3 million Euro each for dividends in 2021 and 2022, claiming to have operated at a loss earlier. That means that the Serbian budget received a total of 9.9 million Euro for its shares which means 1.5 Euro per capita. The profits reported by Belgrade Waterfront in the past 3 years stood at 133.4 million Euro.

Radar said that it seems the state has been limited to receiving crumbs for its investment even though President Aleksandar Vucic, Finance Minister Sinisa Mali and other state officials claimed that Belgrade Waterfront is the deal fo the century and cite it as an example of good management.

On the other hand, the costs, wages and expenses totaled 1.2 billion Dinars (1 Euro – 117 Dinars) in 2023.

Belgrade Waterfront paid 554.7 million Dinars for advertising in 2023.

Radar said that Eagle Hills will get 2.9 billion Dinars this year or 7.5 times more than the state in interest payments on loans which are due to be fully repaid in December. The state has received 20 million Euro over the past three years.
Belgrade Waterfront has also made big payments to its dependent companies – BW Gallery and BW Tower received loans of 56 million Euro last year, bringing the total those two companies got to 218 million Euro.

Radar said that the amount paid into the budget in dividends was the same as the interest earned by Belgrade Waterfront on its bank deposits.