Until the war in Ukraine, Russian citizens and companies owned more than three thousand companies in Montenegro. In the meantime, that figure has been significantly increased. In the IT industry alone, we have more than 300 newly founded companies whose owners come from Russia and Ukraine
According to the October data of the CBCG, more than 66 million euros arrived from Russia in the first seven months of this year. Almost half of that money (31.9 million) was invested in real estate. Slightly more than a quarter of this year’s Russian investments (17.6 million), i.e., more than a third invested in real estate (12 out of 31.9 million) have arrived since the beginning of May, despite the fact that in early April Montenegro joined the harsh economic sanctions of the West according to that country. While official Moscow, at the beginning of March, included Montenegro in the list of “enemy countries”.
Thus, statisticians state, the trend has been maintained according to which, since the restoration of independence in 2006, Russian investments in Montenegro have always been above 10 percent of total foreign direct investments.
This is confirmed by the deal concluded on August 1, which is why it is not yet included in the official statistics of the CBCG, when Miodrag Daka Davidović and Russian businessman Aleksandar Mećetin, owner of the alcohol producer Beluga Group, signed a contract for the purchase and sale of Nexan’s factory for the production of alcoholic beverages in Nikšić. The price was not announced, but Mećetin announced investments of 50 million euros and 300 new jobs. By the way, the owner of Beluga Group is not on the list of Russian citizens against whom EU (and Montenegro) sanctions are applied, and his company was on the Forbes list of “200 largest private companies in Russia” in 2021.
According to the calculation of the CBCG, since 2006, Russians have invested more than one billion euros in the purchase of real estate in Montenegro, while at least another 500 million have been invested in privatized and newly founded companies.
Unofficial data (official data do not exist) show that Russian citizens and companies, until the beginning of the war in Ukraine, were the owners of over three thousand companies in Montenegro. In the meantime, that figure has increased by more than 1,100 companies (data from the Revenue and Customs Administration referring to the period up to mid-June of this year) founded by residents of conflict countries in Eastern Europe, among which there are more than 300 newly founded companies in the IT industry alone. companies (229 were founded by citizens/companies from Russia and 104 from Ukraine), local media writes.
