Serbia's President Vucic meets HBIS Group's chairman in Beijing to back green steel development at the Smederevo plant. A joint Chinese-Serbian laboratory achieves ninety-nine point seven four percent efficiency in hydrogen-based iron production, placing it among the world's leading green steel research programmes. Serbia also launches a carbon levy of four euros per metric ton of CO₂ equivalent, mirroring the European Union's carbon border policy, as national steel output falls nearly twenty-four percent in early 2026.