NIKOLIĆ, Marija (mnikolic@agrif.bg.ac.rs)
Marija Nikolic started her career at the Institute of Agricultural Economics in Belgrade. Since 2006, she has been working on the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Belgrade, in the Department of Agricultural Economics, as an assistant professor. Her main research fields are cooperatives, market and marketing of agricultural products and extension service.
Research Overview
Global economic crises, ordinarily, lead to increased interest in cooperative sector in all countries, regardless of their level of development. In accordance with that, a change in the state attitude towards cooperatives can be noticed in the last few years in Serbia as well. The state support for existing and new cooperatives, especially for agricultural ones, was introduced in Serbia starting in 2017. Although there are certain positive effects manifested in the establishment of significant number of new cooperatives, it is still early to talk about the so-called revival of cooperative sector in Serbia, especially bearing in mind that certain types of co-operatives have been neglected for a long time and even completely banned.
This paper gives an overview of cooperative sector in the Republic of Serbia, with special emphasis on those types of cooperatives that have a significant role in the development of rural areas. In that sense, the focus is on agricultural cooperatives, which account for about 67% of the total number of registered co-operatives in Serbia, but are as well extremely important in terms of employment and participation in the gross domestic product of the cooperative sector. In addition, the effects of the change in cooperative law and the existing state support are examined. Further, serious shortcomings are also pointed out, which are primarily reflected in the non-existence of credit and savings cooperatives that jeopardize the vitality of other types of cooperatives. The analysis suggests that there is some progress, but that the potentials of cooperatives for the development of rural areas are still insufficiently used in Serbia.
(Key words: Co-operatives, Rural areas, Serbia)
