Structural Transformation of the Textile Industry: The Case of the Republic of Serbia

Abstract In the last few decades, the textile industry has been marked by great changes in its production and trade structure. Based on that, a greater involvement of this industry in the flows of international trade was initiated, with the stable intensification of the export positions of new production leaders. At the same time, this has led to key changes in the regional allocation of exports and imports of textile products. On the other hand, the textile industry of the Republic of Serbia has a long tradition and has had an important place in the structure of manufacturing industry for a long time. After the Second World War, the textile industry was one of the most important instruments of demographic and social policy. During the construction of the market system, the textile industry of the Republic of Serbia was unjustifiably neglected. Despite that fact, in the modern conditions, the textile industry has very important place in the exports structure of the Republic of Serbia. This paper gives specific theoretical and empirical recommendations to Serbian policy creators, through a comparison of the results of structural transformation of the textile industry at the global level and the results of this process in the textile industry of the Republic of Serbia.