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Faris Rebronia first came to China in early 2019, having found a job with a language training school based in the county of Pingyao in north China's Shanxi province. He worked there as an English teacher briefly until November 2019, when he decided to start his own business. The first time I came to China, I came here to work as an English teacher because that was my major and my master degree is also in English. The first half a year I worked as an English teacher, then at the end of 2019, with my current business partner, we went back to Serbia together and then we decided to start doing trading business. To venture into the business world is not easy. Rebronia and his Chinese business partner made thorough preparations, visiting factories in both Serbia and China and trying to establish connections between the two sides. Me and Mr... actually we call him Ray, but his name is Gungjinkwai. We decided to go back to Serbia together and see how can we help people in Serbia to cooperate with Chinese factories and Chinese companies. Found some like local companies in Serbia who are interested in buying things from China, but they have never been to China and they don't know where to find some goods, where to find some factories. So that time we decided, okay, let's make a company where we can help Serbian factory owners, company owners. When they come to China, we can find everything for them. We can find the factories, we can find products, we can find goods, everything they need. And ever since then, we've got trading business here. After more than a year of preparatory work, the young man formally launched his international trade business in 2021. In fact, he enjoyed an advantage as he ventured into the business world. His uncles and grandfather own a furniture factory in his hometown back in Serbia. And he used to work at the factory for them and often travel to what he refers to Turkey, which officially is known as Turkia. I was also doing trading, similar to what I do now. Because they are producing furniture, they always need to buy a lot of materials for their furniture. And because I'm very fluent in Turkish and Serbia is very close to Turkey. So they would always send me to Turkey and I would buy all the materials needed for furniture preparation. So while I was studying English at the university, I was also working in my grandfather's factory and helping them buy materials because nobody could speak Turkish there and they always needed to buy a lot of materials from Turkey. So they would usually just send me at least like once or twice a month, I would go to Turkey and buy everything that's needed for the company. Undoubtedly, such experience as a purchaser has taught him what international trading was like. But while in China, he had to adapt to new situations and take on a new role as an international trader or middleman. He carried out lots of research to identify the specific needs of Chinese and Serbian companies and then helped conduct trading between them. He has tried his best to discover companies in Serbia who are willing to buy products from China. In a sense, he is serving as a bridge between Chinese and Serbian enterprises and business people. 90% of the time, they don't even come to China because those are like busy people, busy businessmen. They cannot come here. So they just send us a list of all the things that they need and then me and Mr Ray or sometimes only Mr Ray will go and he will try to find goods for these guys. And then if they like it, they tell us, okay, I want to order one container, two container, 10 containers, it depends on their orders. The goods Faris LeBron and his business partner have traded cover a wide range, but mostly are daily consumer goods such as clothing, furniture, materials, silk and toys. Each time, they try their best to find good quality and good price goods produced by Chinese factories for their customers in Serbia. So far, trade has been going well and the Chinese goods they have traded have won the hearts of the Serbian customers. Every time we get an order, we try to find like a good quality and good price as well for our customers. So they are satisfied and we are satisfied. A lot of times in 99% cases, a customer orders from us and goods arrive in Serbia, they say, wow, the quality is really good. Their customers are also happy. And then they always say, okay, I will order next time as well. So I think people are very happy with the quality we find for them in Chinese companies and Chinese factories. In 2023, LeBron and his Chinese business partner had 35 customers and they received 30 plus orders for the whole year, which brought a good profit. The profits are not bad. It's been a good profit. So the company is doing good now. But there's always a place for improvement. For now, we are just happy where we are. His business partner, Gong Jing Kui, also known as Mr. Ray, says they have been working together very well. He's responsible for finding clients from Serbia and he serves as a translator between me and the prospective Serbian clients. As we figure out in detail, our business cooperation. The two have also been engaged in cross-border e-commerce, selling Chinese goods online to end consumers in Serbia and other countries. Robronia says goods produced in the county of Pingyao, such as lacquerware and jewelry boxes, are very popular among buyers in his home country. Optimistic about his trading business, the young man is looking forward to the implementation of a bilateral free trade agreement signed by China and Serbia in October 2023. It will actually help us a lot. For our customers, that will be really good because they will have to pay less taxes and they can have more profits as well. So we can even send more goods from China to Serbia. In fact, Robronia's trade business is part of the vibrant and growing trade relations between the two countries. Serbia is an important trading partner of China in Central and Eastern Europe, while China serves as a key trading partner of Serbia in Asia. Bilateral trade volume in goods reached US$3.56 billion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of over 10% according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce. As Robronia says, the free trade agreement is expected to further unleash the potential in-trade between the two countries, as tariffs on 90% of goods traded between them will be ultimately eliminated. Short-haired and wearing a pair of black framed glasses, Faris Robronia brims with confidence, youthful energy, and readiness to engage with the outside world. He was born and grew up in Novi Pazar, a regional commercial hub in the south of Serbia, close to the country's border with Montenegro. That city is like six, seven hundred years old. That city has a very big historic importance for Serbia because the first Kingdom of Serbia was established around my city and the royal family was also born there. So that city is very important for our Serbian history, but it's actually very small cities. Only like 100,000 people lived there. I was born there in September 1993. According to Robronia, Novi Pazar literally means new market, which once served as a commercial hub on an important trading route from Turkey to Eastern Europe. Robronia finished his elementary school there before he moved to Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina to attend high school. After that, he went to the Serbian capital Belgrade to attend university. In 2018, he graduated with a master's degree in English. While he was studying at university, the young man was working at his family's furniture factory at the same time. In Serbia, you can study and work at the same time. Actually, I was working in my uncle's company since I was maybe 19 or 20. So I had like five years of work experience before coming to China. While working at his family's factory, the young man often travelled to Turkey to purchase goods. And through these journeys, he had an experience of different cultures. I don't like staying in one place a lot. So I want to explore the world. I want to travel everywhere. Shortly after his graduation, he was encouraged to come to China by his friends who were already in the Asian country and were impressed with it. My friend first came here. He was really impressed and he would always send us pictures. We had like a friends group chat. He would send us pictures of like the big buildings in Beijing, the high speed trains, the subway, everything. Like all the things we don't have in our hometown. Our hometown is very small. And then everybody was like, wow, surprise. Then I was like, wow, maybe I can go there as well. Why not? Let me give it a try at least. I only wanted to stay like six months, but now it's been five years. On his first trip to China, he went from Belgrade to Qatar and from there he flew to Beijing. After landing in the Chinese capital, he was amazed by the metropolis. I was really shocked because Serbia is a very small country. They only had like seven million people. For me, it was really a big shock to see such a big highways, big roads, so many cars on the roads, and so many people going everywhere. So coming from a small country, it was a bit of a shock. But I really liked it. First, actually, I just wanted to stay here like several months, see how the job will be and then go back to my country. But every passing day, I was just more and more impressed with everything in China. So I just decided to stay more and now it's been five years. Having lived in the county of Pingya for more than five years, Revronia has fallen in love with it, especially its famed ancient city, a very popular tourist destination. Pingya is a very interesting place because they have the ancient city, the Guchang. It has a very important historical importance and actually I live outside of the ancient city, but I like to spend most of my time inside the ancient city because you can see many tourists inside, you can see many beautiful things inside the ancient city. There are good restaurants, good bars. So when I finish work, I usually go inside the ancient city and I spend time with my friends. Although he can't speak Chinese, a young man says he has had good interactions with local residents and made many friends. I interact with them every day on a daily basis. Local people are very good and very helpful. That's why I actually stayed here for so long because people here are very good and very friendly. I have a lot of friends here. They can actually speak some really good proper English and I always go out with them and then if others come, my friends will translate for me and then they will translate what they said to me. For a man raised in a food culture dominated by meat and bread, the local Chinese food, such as noodles and buns, offers him a fresh experience. Chinese food is really good. I like the noodles, especially, like a landral onion, very good baozi also, some barbecue shops here. A lot of things you can actually see and eat here that we didn't have back home. Back home, we eat a lot of meat and a lot of bread with every meal. But here, people tend to eat rice more and noodles more. So now, I'm also getting used to eating noodles and rice more. And a bit spicy food because back home, we don't eat that much spicy food but here, people eat spicy food a lot. So I always like to try some new things. In the past five years, he has traveled to small towns and big cities across China, including Shanghai and Guangdong Province. And he really enjoys riding on the high-speed train, which usually travels at speeds of 300 kilometers an hour. One of the best things I like about China is how convenient the transportation is. It can go from any city in China to another city just by using high-speed trains. You don't have to drive your own car. You don't have to fly that much. And it's very cheap and it's very good for people. I always use high-speed trains. Everywhere I go, I just use high-speed trains. Even if I go from Pinot to Tian, it's like 20 minutes. I still use high-speed train. It's very good. Those seats in the high-speed trains are more comfortable than some airplane seats I used in the past. China boasts 45,000 kilometers of high-speed railway network, the largest of its kind in the world. The network connects nearly every major Chinese city. Through his travels, Rabronia has been impressed by the vastness of Chinese territory, as well as its diversity and dynamics. You can experience spring, summer, winter and everything in one day or one month. You can just travel from one part of China to another part. For example, I think it was January 2022. I remember it was minus 15 degrees Celsius in Taiyuan and I went to Sanya, from Taiyuan to Sanya and I landed in Haikou and in Haikou, it was 25 or 30 degrees at the same time. So it's like one country, but it's like 40 degrees difference. For me, that was like, wow, I cannot understand this. Because usually in Serbia, everywhere is the same weather. Meanwhile, on his journeys, he has had meaningful interactions with ordinary Chinese. People are always very friendly and very helping. Sometimes I need some help. I cannot find the place on the map. People will always help me. It doesn't matter if I am in Beijing or actually one time I was in Beijing, my battery on my phone died and I just approached some police officers. It was close to the Forbidden City. I didn't know how to explain. So I just showed them like this and the policeman, he took me to a shop and they gave me those power banks you can rent, the yellow ones. And he even took it for me and he showed me like, ah, you can plug it here, you can do this. So people are very helpful wherever you go. It doesn't matter if you're in Beijing or Sanya or Guangdong. Now having wide and first-hand experience in China, Robronio says he likes to serve as a bridge for exchanges between Chinese and Serbian people. There is a lot of people who have some like prejudice about China. Like they think air quality is not good or something like that. But after I came to China and then I started posting things on my social networks, a lot of people actually messaged me. They say, wow, I never knew China was, especially like when I post videos from like a high-speed train. It's going like 300 kilometers per hour. People cannot believe that because our trains back home, they don't even go 40 kilometers an hour. So people are really shocked. But now for me, that has really become normal. The young man says people-to-people exchanges and mutual visits are key to reducing prejudices and misunderstandings. He hopes that more people from Serbia come to China to see for themselves what the country is really like. I already like where our relations are now. For example, Serbian people in China, they don't need to do driving license exams. You can go to a local police office, give your Serbian driving license, and they will give you a Chinese driving license. And Chinese people in Serbia can do the same thing. So at the moment, I think China and Serbia have really great relationships. But I hope it will improve even more. Like people interactions, I think it would be nicer if we had more Serbian tourists who come and visit China. Because in the recent years, there has been an increase of Chinese tourists who come and visit Serbia a lot. Even in my hometown, there is a lot of Chinese tourists in these years. In May 2021, China and Serbia signed an agreement allowing mutual recognition and exchanges of the two countries' driving licenses. Under the deal, people with driving licenses from one side can drive or apply for new licenses without taking tests in the other country. The young businessman believes that the visa-free agreement between China and Serbia will continue to facilitate travels from both sides. According to the agreement taking effect in January 2017, holders of ordinary passports of both countries can have a visa-free entry for a stay of up to 30 days. The young man plans to go back to Serbia later this year and get married. Then he will bring his wife to China and continue his adventures in life and business here in the world's second largest economy. We are already planning to stay in China for at least several more years. She can come here and then she can just live with me and then her parents can visit us and my parents can visit us and then we can bring more assembly people to come and visit China. I can definitely see myself staying here for at least five more years. Maybe even a decade, I don't know. We will see what the future holds. We will see what the future holds.