Round table: Small and Medium Enterprises Growth, Export, Business Environment

The Institute of Economic Sciences and the editorial board of the magazine "Business and Finance" organized the round table on "Small and Medium Enterprises - Growth, Export, Business Environment" on December 14, 2006, with the following schedule:

10.00 - 10.15	Introductory Speech Dejan Erić, Director of the Institute of Economic Sciences Milica Kostić, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Business and Finance
10.15 - 11.15	Activities Presentation and Topic Analyses of State Institutions Moderator: Jelica Minić, Institute of Economic Sciences
	Petar Pavlović Minister Assistant, Ministry for Economy and Privatization Mirjana Jovanović, Director of Republic Agency for Small and Medium Enterprises Irena Posin, Head of the Department for Export Promotion of the Agency for Export Stimulation and Foreign Investments Nikoleta Vučenović, Deputy Director of the Serbian Business Registers Agency
11.15 - 12.00	Discussion
	Discussion Opening: Zoran Njegovan, Institute of Economics and Belgrade Banking Academy
12.00 - 12.15	Coffee break
12.15 - 13.15	Research on SMEs and Business Climate Analyses Presentation Moderator: Zorica Živković, Biznis i finansije
	Miroslav Glas, Faculty of Economics, Ljubljana Gordana Danilović Grković, Head of the project financed by OESC and UNDP Slobodan Acimovic, Faculty of Economics, Belgrade Procredit banka, Mirjana Zakanji, Deputy of Director General
13.15 - 14.00	Discussion

The main topic of this discussion is the development, export performances, and business climate improvement for SMEs, which are the most significant factor in the Serbian economy. Comprising a number of analyses, general indicators and special aspects of their development, the second annual edition of the magazine "Business and Finance", which is dedicated to SMEs, It was necessary to summarize all these partial reports. Besides, Serbia joined the European Charter on SMEs in 2003, obliging Serbia to improve conditions for their activities continuously and to adjust them to European standards and regulations.

The Institute of Economic Sciences and Editorial Board of the magazine "Business and Finance" as the first topic of the five round tables planned for the end of 2006 and 2007, decided to discuss the theme of Small and Medium Enterprises because of its great interest and importance. The main goal of these round tables is to monitor the situation in certain economic sectors in Serbia and to make prepositions which could be of use to the sector policy creators, informing, at the same time, the public. Therefore, besides the members of public administration, and academic and economic institutions, the representatives of the media are one of the most important participants in future debates, who should provide publicity and spread the awareness of sectors' policies to the public.