CREDITS FOR SERBIAN AGRICULTURE IN THE TRANSITION PERIOD

The possibility for self-financing in agriculture is very small, primarily due to lower labour productivity leading to lower rate of surplus value. Therefore, in the development of Serbian agriculture, special importance is attached to other sources of financing such as: the Agrarian budget, i.e. credits of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management; credits of business banks; development funds; leasing companies. With the reconstruction of the Serbian banking system in 1994, the primary issue, as an important source for financing agriculture used primarily for current reproduction, was abandoned. Due to transition to a market economy system and cancellation of financing from the primary issue, economic entities in agriculture have found themselves in a very unfavourable position. Therefore, in 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management started, for the first time, with lending credits to agricultural entities. The source of money is the Agrarian budget of Serbia. Besides this important source for financing agriculture, the paper also analyses other mentioned sources for lending credits to Serbian agricultural entities in the transition period, i.e. from 2004 to 2008.