Partner: U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

Year: 2017

The main objective was to conduct a baseline assessment of fruit and vegetables (F&V) value chains in Serbia which would be used to determine the impacts of the overall USAID’s Competitiveness Systems Strengthening (CSS) project in the future.

This analysis is mainly focused on the processing and downstream (retail chain) segments of the value chain because it is through these segments that CSS is most likely to, with its limited resources, affect the entire competitiveness system. The assessment of fruit and vegetables value chain in Serbia was conducted through Import and Export analysis, Retail Chains Analysis, and Processors/Producers Analysis within the F&V value chain. The first phase of the project uncovered which F&V products were the most significant in Serbia’s exports and imports, focused on exporting companies and differentiation by the type of their exporting products and the type of their buyers. In the second phase, CEVES conducted 200 phone interviews based on USAID standardized questionnaire. The questionnaire aimed to discover the patterns of firms’ behavior in topics of market linkages, networks and finance.