President Boris Tadic said on March 5 that according to current estimates, the end of 2012 and the start of 2013 is the time when the country will come out of the crisis.

Tadic told journalists during a visit to the Art Ival chocolate factory in Zemun that last year had been better because the crisis had begun to abate, but that global economists had not foreseen the second wave of the crisis that began this year.

"Those who say that the crisis will last five years are right, from 2008 to 2013. Serbia has nevertheless maintained its economy, we have kept our heads above the water, and many have sunk in the meantime," said Tadic.

He went on to say that the launching of family businesses is a way to solve the unemployment problem in Serbia.

"Thousands of such companies are solving Serbia's most difficult problem - unemployment," underscored Tadic, adding that the state had to engage firms which would help those firms.

Tadic said that the Serbian industry's problem is that it lost a decade, which led it to fall behind in terms of technology and become uncompetitive. He added he strongly believed that "small and medium-sized enterprises are the heart of Serbia's economic system."