On August 6, Serbia’s government finalized draft amendments to ten financial laws, ranging from the Budget System Law and the Value Added Tax Law to the Public Debt Law. The same session approved a package of ten economic support programs worth close to 3 billion dinars (about 25 million euros), split between loans and grants.
The sum is smaller than it first appears. Divided evenly across ten programs, each one gets about 300 million dinars (around 2.5 million euros), an amount that in practice covers dozens to a few hundred beneficiaries per program, not thousands.
What’s in the package of ten laws
The list of proposals the government finalized includes:
- Budget System Law
- Value Added Tax Law
- Law on Tax Procedure and Tax Administration
- Excise Duties Law
- Fiscalization Law
- Electronic Invoicing Law
- Electronic Waybills Law
- Public Debt Law
- Law on the Tax on Imports of Carbon Intensive Products
- Law on the Tax on Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Eight of the ten laws belong to the classic tax and fiscal framework: what gets taxed, how it gets reported, how turnover gets recorded and how much the state can borrow. The last two are different. They tax neither consumption nor profit, but carbon: one covers imports of products whose production carries high emissions, the other covers greenhouse gas emissions themselves. These are also the newest regulations on the list, amended in the same package as laws that have been in force for years.
Who gets the 3 billion dinars?
Alongside the laws, the government adopted ten financial support programs. The small and medium enterprise sector gets the Creators of Serbia program. The Domestic Quality, From Domestic Raw Material to Top Product program covers production of food products made from 100 percent domestic raw materials. A separate program targets furniture production and wood processing.
The rest of the package consists of:
- Youth Create Serbia, for young entrepreneurs
- Return and Create, for returnees from abroad starting a business
- Women Who Drive Serbia, for female entrepreneurship in manufacturing
- Building Space for Your Growth, for developing production space
- Capital for Development, subsidized loans for equipment purchases and working capital
- Equal Development Opportunities and Chances for Serbia’s Underdeveloped Areas
- United for Success in Every Region, for associations working on entrepreneurship development
The government adopted the last two programs in the form of decrees, tied to balanced regional development.
A split visible in the list
Five programs are defined by who applies: young people, returnees from abroad, women in manufacturing, associations and businesses in underdeveloped areas. The other five are defined by what gets produced or purchased: food made from domestic raw materials, furniture and wood, production space, equipment and working capital, plus a general line for small and medium enterprises.
That distinction isn’t just a formality. Programs tied to the applicant fill up more easily and are easier to report on, but rarely change the structure of production. Programs tied to equipment and production space get spent more slowly, since they require the applicant’s own contribution and completed investment documentation, and they are the only ones on the list that leave a mark on a company’s fixed assets.
At the same session, the government approved cooperation between Leskovac and the Italian city of Gravina in Puglia, covering economic, business and scientific and technological development, agriculture, education, science, culture and sport.
The draft laws now go to the National Assembly. Until parliament votes, the amendments remain proposals, not obligations for taxpayers. The first concrete figures on the support package will come only once the relevant ministries publish public calls for each individual program, with amounts, deadlines and application requirements.