Loans for Serbia's tourism and hospitality sector planned

At the second sector meeting in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce it was agreed that the companies most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic should receive access to favorable loans for liquidity and working capital from the country's Development Fund. These include small and medium sized companies, the catering sector and passenger transport companies, all of which are in extremely grave condition.

The meeting was attended by the Minister of Finance of Serbia Sinisa Mali, by the President of Serbian Chamber of Commerce Marko Cadez, and several trade associations including those representing travel agencies, hoteliers, event organizers and passenger carriers. The plan is to provide loans of up to five years where no payments would have to be made for the first two years and the interest rate would be 1 percent per annum.

The maximum loan amount for entrepreneurs and micro legal entities is RSD 20 million, while RSD 80m loans would be awarded to medium sized companies and up to RSD 180m could go to larger ones. Affected companies will no doubt be waiting to see if the promised loans actually materialize.