Deputy Prime Minister Verica Kalanovic announced today that measures for increasing liquidity of companies that include the restriction of deadline for payment of liabilities to 60 days should be passed during May.

Kalanovic said in a statement to Tanjug news agency that the state will be the first one to comply with this measure and added that the deadline for payments between companies will also be restricted.

We are currently working on calculating the real debts in various sectors, such as debts of state bodies, local governments, public companies, overdue payments to funds, as well as mutual claims of companies, she said.

The first thing we will suggest is that government bodies, ministries and institutions that order goods and services from the state budget have a payment deadline of two months, Kalanovic pointed out.

She noted that everybody, including the government, businessmen, trade unions and all employees agree that the main problems at this moment have to do with insolvency, unemployment and in part with lack of respect for financial discipline by certain companies.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that a programme of double incentives will soon be adopted for 11 more towns.

At the moment, the incentives amounting to €10,000 per new employee are used in Novi Pazar, Kraljevo, Nis and Zajecar.

Some of the towns that will be entitled to double incentives are Leskovac, Krusevac, Loznica, Sremska Mitrovica, Kalanovic said and noted that this programme, which was adopted in June last year, gave good results.

According to business plans and guarantees the companies prepared when they signed the agreements on incentives, around 7,200 workers will be employed and the investors have been encouraged by double incentives.

Kalanovic gave the example of Nis, which at one moment had serious social problems due to a large number of the unemployed, but owing to double incentives it attracted as many as 19 investors.

These measures should be followed by adoption of the law on the register of disqualified persons which should enable stricter discipline in the process of setting up companies, the Deputy Prime Minister concluded.