Though Serbia’s incoming Student List government called for the resignation of several senior officials and an audit of public projects, some of them built by Chinese contractors, analysts and insiders said it was unlikely the new coalition’s victory would lead to a sea change in the business relationship between the two countries.

The message at Thursday’s Student List news conference – the first since the electoral coalition defeated former president Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in Sunday’s parliamentary election – echoed the one sent out months ago in neighbouring Hungary.

There, following his triumph over Viktor Orban, Prime Minister Peter Magyar called for senior officials to resign and vowed greater scrutiny of government contracts. Much like Serbia, Chinese firms in Hungary had built up a strong presence following years of strongman rule.

Chinese firms in Serbia, many of whom were uneasy before the vote, have since reacted with equanimity. Executives and analysts said the Chinese presence was too important to Serbia for the firms to face a Hungary-style reckoning, though some warned that future corruption probes could still make them the target of public anger.

“We do not expect the new government to have a big shift on its position vis-a-vis China – the new party’s core demands are in making lives better and curbing corruption,” said a senior executive at a Chinese firm with a major presence in Serbia, who requested anonymity.

The victorious opposition movement was born out of a protest sparked by a canopy collapse at Novi Sad railway station in 2024 that killed 16 people. The station was renovated by a Chinese consortium that included China Railway International and China Communications Construction, which said the canopy was not part of the contract.

Serbian public opinion had, so far, focused on the responsibility of the outgoing SNS-led coalition government rather than on the Chinese contractors, the executive said, adding that it was important for Chinese firms to steer clear of controversy.

One such episode cited by the executive was electric vehicle maker BYD’s hiring of Orban’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, shortly after the change of power in Hungary, a move that sparked strong backlash and put Chinese companies there under scrutiny. “That was jaw-dropping,” the executive said.

The new government will be open for business for any company, foreign investorStefan Pekic, lawyer Many firms were worried in the lead-up to the election, said Novi Sad lawyer Stefan Pekic, who studied at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and counts many Chinese companies in Serbia among his clients.

He said that clients and fellow lawyers in China had asked him about it, but he found their fears exaggerated.

“I always believe that Chinese companies and Chinese people in Serbia have nothing to be concerned about … the new government will be open for business for any company, foreign investor – from the United States or from China or from Russia,” he said.

Pekic blamed clients’ apprehension on media controlled by the Vucic regime that aired “fearmongering news” about the prospect of an opposition victory. No client had come to him with concerns since the election, he said.

Part of the strength of Chinese firms lay in the jobs they created, said Jovan Zubovic, director of the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade, with some 2,000 Chinese companies employing around 40,000 people in Serbia – around 2 per cent of the country’s total workforce.

“Chinese companies have been established, especially in the smaller cities where some of the companies are located, and these companies are practically the main employers in the whole region of those smaller districts,” Zubovic said.

The new government would urge Chinese companies to make sure their projects aligned with environmental and labour standards, but China would remain an important partner country even as Brussels looked to also increase its influence in Serbia – which is not a member of the European Union – said Vuk Vuksanovic, a foreign policy lecturer at King’s College London.

“[The EU] was frequently perceived by Belgrade as being too low and ineffective in mobilising its resources and offering them to Serbia,” Vuksanovic said.

Zubovic said the key for the new government in the medium term would be to negotiate a higher level of cooperation at the state level and help Serbia escape from the middle-income trap – its biggest economic challenge and one for which China, which had managed to climb up the value chain, could help in surmounting.

He said one uncertainty for Chinese firms was what the new government would find in the outgoing government’s documents and contracts related to the Novi Sad railway station renovation project.

“Most probably, the problem is who will be responsible … if it’s individual [Chinese employees], then there will be no problems,” Zubovic said. “If it was at the company level, then we could see some changes in attitude.”