Coronavirus Crisis Has Major Negative Impact on Small Companies and “Unfortunate” Sectors – Discussion Organized by Slovenian Business Club

The economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic is selective. It doesn't equally affect all sectors of the economy even remotely, and large companies have a much better chance of surviving the crisis without serious consequences than small companies, it was said last Friday at the breakfast-event “What Has Coronavirus Brought Us?”, organized by the Slovenian Business Club in Serbia, which brought together the “large” and the “small”.

– The Serbian economy is currently on life support through state aid, so it's not quite clear what its current state is – said Branko Greganovic, the chairman of the Executive Board of NLB Banka Beograd. – Until mid-2021, we will not know what the pressure is on the cash-flow in the Serbian economy, as loans were taken out with a one-year grace period.

Greganovic warned that, even though, despite everything, there had been considerable corporate loan activities, the level of approved cash credits is only 50% compared to 2019.

Bostjan Vodeb, the director of Gorenje Beograd, said that the operations of this company, owned by the Chinese Hisense Group, had not been substantially affected by the pandemic – it is even better than last year – and highlighted the importance of managing the supply chain, among other things, by keeping the stock at just the right level, neither too high nor too low, for the survival of production companies during the pandemic. Greganovic (NLB) agreed and recommended that, those who wanted to understand the market game at that moment should do a web search on the words “beer game”.

Vladimir Micovic, the director of finances at JUP Simanovci, and Goran Mikanovic, the director of Ceblex-S from Platicevo, also said that their factories had not suffered any major blows due to the pandemic.

Milan Joksimovic, a senior partner at the JSP Law Office, warned of a certain halt in the operations of the Serbian judicial system and said that those filing lawsuits at that moment could expect the processes to start the next year.

The director of Profil Group Beograd, Zoran Lazukic, talked about the experience from the field of HR management. He said that, in the conditions of working from home, collectives without a strict hierarchical structure had fared better.

Ivan Grujic, the assistant executive director at Triglav Osiguranje, talked about the measures that this successful company had taken to suppress the effects of the pandemic. In the market of Serbia, but also in most other markets, Triglav is recording a serious growth even in the crisis year of 2020.

That Slovenia, unlike Serbia, directly surveyed companies about anti-crisis measures, was noted by the director of Poslovni Savetnik, Aleksandar Vasic.

The solid dose of optimism of most participants in the discussion was not shared by those representing small and medium enterprises.

In the introductory part, Djordje Zivanovic, the country manager for Serbia at Coface, the leading provider of services for business information and debt collection in Central and Eastern Europe, held a presentation called “How to Protect from Business Risks”.

Serbia is the largest foreign trade partner of Slovenia outside the European Union and, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the total trade in the first six months of 2020 remained at the same level as last year. Still, the projected increase of the annual trade from 1.7 to 2 billion euros will not be realized. In the analysis of the eKapija portal titled “The Coronavirus Economy and Investments in the Region: Slovenia-Serbia”, prior to the discussion among the top managers, the most important current cross-border investments between the two countries were listed and it turned out that they hadn't stopped either, despite the difficult movement due to the health measures.

M. Radonjic

Slovenački poslovni klub Beograd

NLB Banka a.d. Beograd

Gorenje d.o.o Valjevo

Gorenje d.d. Velenje

JUB d.o.o Šimanovci

Cablex-S Platičevo

Profil group d.o.o. Beograd

Triglav osiguranje a.d.o. Beograd

Poslovni savetnik doo

Coface Srbija d.o.o. Beograd

eKapija.com Beograd

Advokatska kancelarija JSP

SPK

Slovenian Business Club

Branko Greganović

Boštjan Vodeb

Vladimir Mićović

Goran Mikanović

Milan Joksović

Zoran Lazukić

Ivan Grujić

Aleksandar Vasić

Đorđe Živanović

coronavirus

Serbia Slovenia relations

trade between Serbia and Slovenia

beer game

cash flow

supply chain