Serbian-made or Chinese-made: the rules-of-origin question for Šabac's robots

On 31 August, an analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) told RFE/RL something the ribbon-cutting coverage from Šabac two days earlier had skipped: Serbia's preferential trade status with the EU could let robots designed in China reach Europe without paying tariffs the EU has not yet written. On 2 September, Nova Ekonomija and Šabačke Novosti reported that Minth Group — the Chinese company hosting the humanoid line in Šabac — and a sister company were getting roughly €29 million more in state subsidies, on top of over €37 million already paid out since 2020. Neither story is about the robots' spec sheet. Both are about a narrower question: what has to happen on that line for a robot to legally count as Serbian rather than Chinese — and what that answer is worth, per job, to the budget.

What the analyst actually said

Altynay Junusova, who covers Chinese industrial policy at MERICS, made two separate points to RFE/RL's Balkan Service (RSE) on 29 August and to RFE/RL's English service on 31 August. The first is a general warning about the technology: "For the EU, this project risks exacerbating some of the dangers that already exist" — sensors, cameras and network connections moving into homes and workplaces, a risk she said applies to humanoid robots regardless of where they are assembled.

The second point is more specific and is the one that matters for Šabac. In the Serbian-language interview, Junusova said the EU's trade-defense instruments are "mostly country-specific," and that it is "unlikely that a possible tariff on robots from China would also cover robots produced in Serbia." In the English write-up, RFE/RL summarized the same idea the other way round: as robotics rules tighten, a Chinese maker "may be able to categorize its products as being made substantially in Serbia," which currently has preferential trade conditions with Brussels. Both versions describe the same mechanism — a country-targeted EU measure would apply to goods on the basis of where they legally originate, not on the basis of who owns the factory.

One caveat neither version states loudly enough to miss: no such EU tariff on robots exists today. This is Junusova's forecast of what a future measure would probably look like and who it would probably miss, not a description of a rule already in force.

Two different origin tests, not one

"Preferential trade status" and "rules of origin" get used almost interchangeably in coverage of this story, but they are two different tracks in EU customs law, and a future tariff on Chinese robots would most likely run on the second one.

Serbia's zero-tariff access for industrial goods comes from the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) and its Protocol 3, which sets out when a product counts as "originating" in Serbia for preferential-duty purposes. Economists discussing Chinese-subsidized goods more broadly have cited a rule of thumb that over half a product's value must be added domestically to qualify — but that figure comes from a 2024 comment about manufacturing in general, not a rule published for robots, and no Serbian or EU source we found sets a numeric threshold for this product category.

A tariff aimed at "robots from China," by contrast, would almost certainly be a trade-defense measure, using the EU's non-preferential rules of origin under the Union Customs Code, not the SAA. Brussels' own guidance defines the test as the country of the good's "last substantial transformation," with an anti-circumvention clause attached: processing does not shift origin to the country doing it when that processing exists specifically to dodge a tariff. In plain terms, assembling a Chinese-designed, mostly Chinese-built robot in Šabac would not automatically make it Serbian for this purpose if regulators concluded the assembly step itself existed to avoid a duty.

What nobody will say about the assembly line

Whether that scenario applies to Šabac depends entirely on how much of the robot is actually made there — and on this point, the record is a wall of unanswered questions. When the factory opened on 29 August, RSE asked the Serbian government, Minth Group and AGIBOT directly what "production" means in the first phase and whether finished components arrive pre-built from China. None of the three answered. RSE separately asked whether data collected by Serbian-made robots would be accessible to the Chinese manufacturer; AGIBOT and Minth did not answer that question either.

The pattern is not new. Back in mid-July, Nova Ekonomija sent questions about humanoid robot production to the Minth factory and to five state bodies — the ministries of economy, finance, and science and technological development, the Development Agency of Serbia, and the Presidency. "We received no answer from anyone," the outlet wrote. As of this article, none of these questions — from either outlet, on either date — has a public answer on record.

What the state is paying, per job

The 2 September subsidy news is not about the robot line directly — it covers two Minth Group automotive-parts subsidiaries, both owned through Cheerplan Limited of Hong Kong. Minth Automotive Europe in Loznica gets €17.29 million toward a car-parts plant tied to 600 new temporary jobs by end-2026 — about €28,800 per job. Minth Metal Parts Balkan in Šabac gets €11.6 million to make stainless decorative auto parts, tied to 220 permanent jobs through 2028 — about €52,700 per job, paid in three tranches as hiring targets are met. With land worth €1.44 million and over €37 million paid to Minth-linked firms since 2020, the state's total commitment to the group now runs to roughly €66.7 million.

None of that is the robot factory's own budget. That line, reported separately at its 29 August opening, was built for about €20 million and about 200 jobs — a steeper €100,000 per job. The two figures measure different things, and a large subsidy is not, by itself, evidence of deep local processing: money changing hands satisfies none of the tests above. What it does show is how much value Serbia will put behind anchoring this Chinese industrial group in Šabac and Loznica — the same footprint the humanoid line sits inside.

What it means for an integrator or buyer

For now, there is no EU tariff to plan around, and no published EU threshold — numeric or otherwise — that says how much of a robot has to be made in Serbia for it to count as Serbian. That absence is itself worth noting: the US took the opposite approach in July, publishing an explicit test — over 65% of component cost domestic, plus US manufacture — to decide whether a robot counts as a "domestic end product." The EU has set no comparable number for this product category, which means a buyer or integrator cannot yet get a definitive origin ruling on a Šabac-built unit, only informed guesses.

Two practical habits follow from that. First, ask a Serbian supplier for whatever origin documentation exists — a movement certificate or a statement on origin under SAA Protocol 3 — rather than assuming "made in Serbia" on a spec sheet settles the customs question. Second, ask specifically what "assembly and calibration," the phrase used publicly about the Šabac line, actually covers: which parts arrive finished, which are made or substantially worked on site, and whether that has changed since the opening. So far, the companies that could answer that question have chosen not to.

What we'll watch

Whether the EU opens any trade-defense procedure that would touch robots at all, and if it does, whether it sets a numeric local-content or processing threshold the way the US already has. Whether Serbian authorities, Minth or AGIBOT ever answer the standing questions about assembly depth and component sourcing. And whether the wider ecosystem taking shape around Šabac — battery cells and an industrial park planned for Inđija, a robot-training centre in Kragujevac — eventually shifts how much value genuinely gets added inside Serbia, regardless of how the origin question is settled on paper.

Sources

• RFE/RL, 31 August 2026 — As US Bans Chinese Robots, Serbia Launches Mass Humanoid Production
• Radio Slobodna Evropa, 29 August 2026 — Srbija: kineska fabrika robota
• Nova Ekonomija, 2 September 2026 — Minth-u opet pare iz državne kase
• Šabačke Novosti, 2 September 2026 — Opet pare iz državne kase
• Nova Ekonomija, 14 July 2026 — Stižu humanoidni roboti, samo kasne
• European Commission — Non-preferential rules of origin