Small and medium-sized enterprises are a key part of every national economy and represent a factor of economic and social stability. In particular, entrepreneurial organizations are recognized as drivers of economic development, because they encourage the introduction of new technologies and have a direct impact on the level of investments and aggregate demand in terms of macroeconomic indicators. Also, this type of organizations contributes to solving the problem of unemployment and unequal distribution of wages. The need for strategic support and development of small and medium enterprises at the state level is permanent. In the past, these entities have been hit by the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus, inflation and digitization. The subject of the paper is the results review of the small and medium-sized enterprises development in Serbia, as well as the perspective of their further growth. Taking into account the effect of quality standards on business results, the connection of small and medium-sized enterprises with scientific and research institutions, but also the connection between the same organizations on the market, the authors propose certain improvements for their development. The key elements are based on the adequate and correct diagnosis of the mentioned connections. The research sample was purposive, which included companies in each of the 5 regions of the Republic of Serbia (n=112). The importance of quality standards and cooperation with faculties and scientific research institutions was established. It has been proven that the biggest obstacles in the development of the business of small and medium-sized enterprises are administrative procedures, as well as fiscal appropriation, and that the biggest impact on future business prospects is the adopted quality standard, investment in modern equipment, innovation, new knowledge and the introduction of new production lines.

Backwardness in economic development in comparison with EU and countries from region, expressed especially after big crisis from 2008, demands a change of country's economic policy in order to create assumptions for a long-term sustainable development and competitiveness' increase in regional and world contexts. Having in mind results realized so far, there is a real danger that current economic policy will stabilize country on a low level of GDP, high unemployment rate, with low wages and bad working conditions in a large number of enterprises, in domestic or foreign ownership. Such situation is a result of non-existence of adequate strategy of economic development in transitional period. The goal of paper is to point that new economic policy should be based on support to sectors which most of its added value create through internationalization of business and which have faster growth of revenues on foreign than on domestic markets, such as IT sector, agro-business, medium-tech developed industries.

Small and medium sized enterprises are one of the key factors in the dynamic economic development and the reduction of the high unemployment rate, especially among the young and hard-to-employ categories in the society. These enterprises contribute to the more efficient resource allocation because they apply work intensive production methods which provides balance establishment between higher workforce availability and lack of capital. There is a special importance of the production oriented SMEs in Serbia because the economic policy of the transition period favoured service sector development. That is the reason for the results in SMEs and entrepreneurship sector to be far lower than expected, followed by insolvency, high indebtedness and unfavourable sorces of funding dominated by too expensive bank loans. The economic policy in the future should provide a favourable business environment for SMEs and entrepreneurship sector growth and development, as well as raising their competitiveness in relation to companies from the developed economies.

In the modern global environment, there is a trend of increasing and changing the structure of demand for agricultural sector products. This situation requires a market-oriented approach from agricultural producers, ranging from economic entities to individual farms. Serbia’s agricultural policy is characterized by short-term, ad hoc measures, which prevent predictions and timely adjustments by producers, leaving participants in the market chain uncertain about their long-term orientation. In the total value of agricultural production in 2023, crop production accounted for 69.8%, while livestock production accounted for 30.2%, whereas in developed EU countries, the ratio of crop to livestock production is reversed. This indicates a significant share of low-value-added production, or production with a low level of processing. This paper analyzes the state of Serbia’s agricultural sector, which is under pressure from poor agricultural policies, numerous internal weaknesses, and insufficient financial resources in an unstable geopolitical environment.

The organizations which accepted project management concept among the first, gained a lot of advantages compared to others, such as: faster and easier adjustment to the environment, shorter accomplishment time, structured decision-making, responsibility specification, customer needs focus, etc. One of the basic factors of project management is costs because they demand fund allocation for its realization. Project management is a complex process, with business environment complexity in mind. Therefore, the issues of selection, realization and evaluation of the project deserve significant attention. The aim of this paper is to indicate project management concept advantages, the importance of project cost estimate and control, as well as evaluation method and project selection with the aim of efficiency increase for the entire process.

The accounting profession and financial reporting quality development are moving alongside market economy development, which contributes to financial system stability and increases capital market efficiency and the efficiency of the entire economy. This paper researches the influence of certain factors on financial reporting quality improvement in Serbia. The paper aims to identify the restrictions and problems in IAS/IFRS application, determine the effect of the factors with the most significant influence and recommend solutions for competent government institutions to establish quality financial reporting systems that will significantly contribute to local enterprise international competitiveness growth and increase. Results of the conducted empirical research showed numerous weaknesses in the system of financial reporting in the Republic of Serbia, which are reflected in frequent changes in legal regulations, small participation of the accounting profession in the enactment of legal regulations, often selective application of IFRS, the absence of national accounting standards, insufficient practical education and improvement of accounting personnel, unadjusted Legal Regulation with EU Directive 2013/34EU and others. Therefore, at the end of the paper, recommendations were given to the competent institutions in the Republic of Serbia to improve and modernize the field of financial reporting, which would affect companies' performance on domestic and international markets.