CEVES Newsletter July 2026 Dear friends, associates, and colleagues, In our second CEVES newsletter this year, we comment on economic growth assumptions
The Fiscal Strategy expects GDP growth to accelerate from 2.0% in 2025 to 3.0% in 2026, and then to significantly
Protests were certainly not the main culprit for the slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter of this year, but they exposed the fact that it has been standing on increasingly weaker foundations in recent years.
We share with you the newsletter for the first quarter of 2025 – which, in addition to a brief overview of the most important economic trends in Serbia and the EU, also includes our reflections on the key challenges shaping the economic and political climate, as well as CEVES's activities during this period.
It is time for Serbia's economy to stop being a „timid beast,“ as Forbes rightly assessed it in its article on Friday. By „economy,“ we mean those who are not part of the regime's clientele.
The study has been published „Empowering Western Balkan Economies: Attractiveness and Transparency of State Aid in the Region“ whose aim is to examine the types, amounts, and measures of state aid that the governments of the six Western Balkan countries provide to domestic and foreign companies, with the aim of promoting innovation, technological progress, productivity, and other factors.
At the end of the current year, we share with you the New Year's newsletter – which, along with congratulations, hopes, and good wishes, also contains a quick overview of the economic situation and expectations in Serbia and the European Union, as well as a concise summary of CEVES's key activities and partnerships in 2024 with a look ahead. We also take this opportunity to express our strong support for students and citizens who, through protests, demand that institutions start doing their job – honestly.
SMEs face challenges that exceed their capacities. These challenges not only threaten their survival but also limit their potential to contribute to economic growth and job creation.
The proposed high level of public investment does not guarantee their quality – neither in terms of executed works nor contributions to GDP growth and improvement of the quality of life, Nemanja Šormaz tells Danas.
„The low level of domestic private investment is a consequence of two key factors – one concerns the state, and the other concerns the SME sector itself,“ says Nemanja Šormaz, Director of CEVES, in an interview with Bloomberg Adria.
Organized by the Center for High Economic Studies (CEVES) and USAID's Project for Large Small Businesses, and with the support of the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia,
ALL ROADS LEAD TO MSP Economic growth in Serbia in 2023 is estimated at 2.5%, while in 2024.
The European Commission prepared the New Growth Plan for the Western Balkans in November 2023 (hereinafter referred to as the Plan), which should
In order to converge faster towards the EU, more domestic investments are needed. Small and medium-sized enterprises in Serbia state that the most important thing the state can do for them is to reinstate the tax credit.
In order for the significant investments that Serbia is making these days to be sustainable (both in terms of the longevity of desirable effects and in the context of environmental protection) and to benefit all citizens of Serbia, encourage them to stay and invest here, “pull” those who are not “politically connected” or are even neglected and lagging behind — a Development Plan is necessary.
If it were enabled for the tax credit to amount to 50% of the investment, it would cost the state 300 to 400 million euros annually. That is not a small amount of money, but the effect would be a 40% growth in private investments in the medium term of 5 years.
Although state officials are vehemently denying claims that the state discriminates against domestic small investors, the situation in reality seems different. Pavle Medić explains that direct support in the form of subsidies and indirect support through tax laws benefit only large companies.
„The main obstacles to export growth in the SME sector lie in underinvestment and labor shortages, and the key problem is the investment environment,“ says CEVES Director Nemanja Šormaz in an interview with Biznis.rs.
Pavle Medić and Lazar Ivanović write for NIN about the plan „Jump into the Future – Serbia Expo 2027„. “This idea, which we will call the “plan' for the purpose of this text, although we have never seen it, is yet another in a series of marketing tricks without adequate basis in law and reality. For this very reason, we will criticize it from an institutional perspective, as well as from the viewpoint of its economic expediency."
After several months of hibernation, the play about the lithium miracle has started again in the theatre of the absurd. Two facts. First: Serbia is a country with one of the highest rates of corruption on the European continent – only BiH, Belarus, and Ukraine are worse. Second: the Jadar project is a major challenge for Serbia.
