Today the Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) organized a gathering entitled “100.000 START UP SERBIA”, to mark the 100,000th company registration. In addition to Verica Kalanović, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development and Mr. Dejan Jovanović, Director of the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency (SMEA), attendees included Ms. Andrijana Glavina, the founder of the 100,000th registered company.

„The first 100,000 have already given Serbia a push! However, our work has only just begun! We need many more new companies, many good business ideas and a huge joint effort to gain the economic strength that Serbia deserves! The companies registered so far, have made their first steps, the state is right by their side, to facilitate administrative procedures for business registration, to assist them in getting the most favorable loans to successfully start their private business,” stated Mr. Zvonko Obradović, SBRA Director.

Ms. Andrijana Glavina, the owner of the 100,000th registered company, a producer of industrial packaging, will apply for a start-up loan with the Development Fund and SME Agency. The pre-condition for the approval of the loan, which amounts to 30,000 EUR, granted by the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development, is registration with SBRA. On this occasion she was awarded a laptop from SBRA’s strategic partner, ComTrade Group, as well as a ADSL connection and a year of free internet from Serbian Telekom.

As of today, all interested individuals who want to register as sole traders can avail themselves of the Serbian Business Registers Agency’s electronic registration service to submit their applications for registration. Thanks to electronic registration, applicants will only be required to present themselves at the Agency once, when collecting the original certificate of registration. On that occasion they will be required to submit a signed copy of the electronic registration certificate, the supporting documents prescribed by law and the registration fee payment slip. However, the required documents, as well as SBRA’s certificate may also be delivered by mail, thus avoiding the need to come to the Agency in person.

To activate this service, a user account must first be registered on the Agency’s website.
After registering a user account successfully, the user may access the system and submit an application for registration as sole trader.

Once the electronic application has been submitted, a confirmation of electronic submission of application is e-mailed to the user. The confirmation, signed by the applicant, together with the original supporting documents and registration fee payment slip, must be submitted in person to SBRA when collecting the original certificate of registration.

Entrepreneurs may submit their electronic applications for registration as sole trader by clicking on Еlectronic submittal (on the home page of this web portal).

As of today, Serbian Business Registers Agency’s (SBRA) customers can avail themselves of a new service to check the status of their application via SMS, by sending a message to 7272. This service is available to all business users of mobile networks 062, 063, 064 and 065.

The status can be checked of all applications submitted by companies or individuals to the Serbian Business Registers Agency, i.e. the Company Register and the Register of pledges on movable assets and rights (for the registration of pledges). 

The service can be activated by simply sending an SMS text message containing the code CAS (for company application status) or PAS (for pledge application status), followed by the submittal reference number assigned by the Agency. Shortly, users will receive confirmation it the application has been received in SBRA’s head office, if it is being processed, or whether the application has been approved or rejected by decision of the Registrar.

The status check service charge is RSD 5 per SMS message, which only covers the costs of the mobile operator and provider, while the Agency offers its services free of charge.

By introducing this SMS based application status check service, SBRA aims to facilitate user access to information on the status of their application anytime, anyplace, in order to further decrease the time needed to complete business registration.

As a reminder, from April all SBRA service users may check the status of their application on the Agency website home page, in the section “Companies” and “Entrepreneurs” – “Application status”.

INFORMATION ON THE PARTICIPATION OF ZVONKO OBRADOVIĆ, DIRECTOR OF THE SERBIAN BUSINESS REGISTERS AGENCY (SBRA), AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE CORPORATE REGISTERS FORUM IN CANADA

Director of the Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA), Mr. Zvonko Obradović, has been invited to participate in the Annual Conference of the Corporate Registers Forum (CRF) held in Canada (Vancouver, March 31 - April 4, 2008), in the capacity of the President of the Steering Committee of the European Commerce Registers’ Forum (ECRF), to present activities of ECRF that is presided by SBRA from June 2007 to June 2008.

At yesterday’s session, Mr. Obradović informed the conference participants about all activities that Serbian Business Registers Agency undertook as a presiding ECRF register since June 2007. He also presented results of the 3rd XBRL ECRF Conference that SBRA organized in Belgrade on the 18th of January. In conclusion of his presentation, Mr. Obradovic invited conference delegates to come to Serbia on the occasion of the 11th Annual ECRF Conference that Serbian Business Registers Agency would organize on the 19th and 20th of June, 2008, in Belgrade.

The Corporations Canada is the host of the 2008 CRF Conference that has the theme “Between Friends – Interoperability”. The Conference was opened by Ms. Marie-Josée Thivierge, Assistant Deputy Minister of Industry of Canada.

CRF is an international not-for-profit organization for administrators of corporate securities registers, founded five years ago with an aim to establish a platform for the exchange of experiences of the corporate securities registers. CRF Members jurisdictions are: Australia, Canada, Cook Islands, Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Malaysia, Mauritius, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Samoa, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tonga, United Kingdom, Vanuatu and Zambia.

SBRA’s EXPERIENCE IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE BUSINESS REGISTRATION SYSTEM REFORM PRESENTED AT WORLD BANK INSTITUTE WORKSHOP IN DUSHANBE (11-12 March 2008, Tajikistan)

At today’s workshop in Dushanbe (Tajikistan), organized by the Government of Tajikistan, with the support of the World Bank Institute and the financial assistance of the Government of Japan, Director of the Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA), Mr. Zvonko Obradović, presented previous experiences of the Republic of Serbia in the implementation of the business registration reform and introduction of a ‘one stop shop’ registration system.

Mr. Obradović’s participation in the two-day convention on the topic of “Establishment and implementation of a one stop shop registration system in Tajikistan – challenges and possibilities”, was by invitation of the World Bank Institute, which recognized SBRA as a successful reformer and regional leader in the field of business registration.
 

CLOSING OF RECEIPT OF FINANCIAL REPORTS DUE IN FEBRUARY

Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) has received 108,261 company financial reports. Based on the documents that have arrived and have been processed, 13,395 entrepreneurs, 91,927 small and 2,939 medium and large enterprises have filed their financial statements with SBRA.

Out of the total number of financial reports filed, as many as 60% arrived by mail, while the rest were handed in at SBRA’s Belgrade office and 13 extension offices.

All paper documents received, will be processed and transferred into electronic format by the Agency, while the top five most important data from the 2007 annual returns will be published on our website, (on the Data Search page, in the Business Register section): business income and expenditures, total profit, assets value and company capital.

In addition, in the future, the Agency will also publish data on the total number of employees, as an integral part of the corporate data which will be made available to the public.

Furthermore, in the course of this year another new service will be made available to users – scanned annual reports for the period from 2005 to 2007.

SBRA SIGNS DONATION PROTOCOL WITH INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY  KOICA FOR THE “IMPROVEMENT OF ADMINISTRATIVE CAPABILITY OF SERBIAN BUSINESS REGISTERS AGENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA” 

On 14 February 2008, the Serbian Business Registers Agency and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) signed a Donation Protocol for the “Improvement of Administrative Capability of the Serbian Business Registers Agency of the Republic of Serbia”.

The Protocol was signed at SBRA’s office by Mr. Zvonko Obradović, SBRA Director and Mr. Kong Moo Heon, Leader of KOICA’s Implementation Survey Team.

The signing took place in the presence of Her Excellency Kim Yung Hi, Ambassador of South Korea, the State Secretary for Foreign Economic Relations of the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development Jasna Matić, and the Advisor to the Department for Programming and Management of EU Funds and Development Assistance of the Ministry of Finance Igor Perić.

The Ambassador of South Korea dr. Kim Yung Hi expressed her conviction that successful implementation of the project will speed up and facilitate, as well as increase the transparency and efficiency of doing business in Serbia, to the benefit of not only domestic companies but also foreign investors, and that the project will contribute to a better living standard of Serbia’s citizens and forging closer ties between the people of Serbia and Korea.

Dr. Yung Hi emphasized that the Korean Government had made an exception with respect to the amount of the donation, as the standard amount approved per project does not usually exceed USD 2 million, whereas the funding approved in this case amounts to USD 3.2 million.

State Secretary for Foreign Economic Relations of the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development of the Government of Serbia, Ms. Jasna Matić, emphasized that upgrading SBRA’s operations would result in an improved business environment in Serbia and increased efficiency of the domestic economy, which in turn would contribute to increasing the volume of foreign investments.

The donation, consisting of equipment and software, will be implemented over a period of two years, from 2008 to 2009.

The donation is intended for upgrading the existing system, through the introduction of integrated registers, e-archives and the development of an information hub for internal and external users, (state institutions and interested users).

The funds will be allocated also for the establishment of a One-Stop-Shop system, aiming to provide services which will be integrated in one office, in the Serbian Business Registers Agency. With the introduction of a One-Stop-Shop system, the foundations will have been laid for the development of communications and the implementation of electronic procedures between the various state agencies.

The implementation of the project will contribute to upgrading cooperation between the two countries in the field of information and communications technologies (ICT), through the transfer of know how held by the Republic of Korea to the Republic of Serbia in the field of e-governance.

Respected users,

We are happy to announce that we’ve redesigned Internet page of Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA).

New Internet page is more user friendly than the old one, enabling better interaction between you and SBRA.

Our Internet page is now more rich in terms of its contents, providing various information, news, frequently asked questions, as well as some samples of filled in applications.

We are looking forward to receiving your eventual suggestions wich will help us to improve our web site’s performances.

Thank you in advance!

SBRA DISCOBOLOS 

The Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA) has been awarded with the prestigious Discobolos 2007 award in the public sector activities category, for the Agency’s services based on high accessibility databases.

At the award ceremony, held on 18 December in the Continental Hotel, the laureates were awarded the recognition by an international jury composed of members of the European Assembly of ICT Associations, the European Chamber of Commerce and regional ICT Associations.

The Discobolos award is granted in recognition of outstanding achievements in the field of information and communications technologies (ICT), as well as for radio and television programs promoting ICT.