Small and medium enterprises are the main driver of a country's economy. For this reason, a mentoring program for this type of company has been running in Serbia since 2010, which included 523 users throughout Serbia, until the beginning of last year. In 2015, 98 beneficiaries (87 companies and 11 clusters) received mentoring support.
The program was implemented by the Development Agency of Serbia (former National Agency for Regional Development) in cooperation with the Government of Japan through the Japanese Agency for International Cooperation - JICA. Accordingly, on February 24, the best mentors of 2015 were announced in Belgrade.
Recognition for the best mentor was awarded to Ljiljana Marković from the Regional Agency for Development and European Integration Belgrade (RAREI), who helped in the development of the SME "Sani Optik". Second place goes to Saša Dedeić from RRA "Braničevo - Podunavlje" from Požarevac, and the third prize was shared equally by: Nataša Knežević (Regional Development Agency Zlatibor), Ivan Mihajlović (Regional Development Agency "Jug" from Niš) and Radojka Savić and Ana Peterson (Regional Agency for Spatial and Economic Development of Raški and Moravički districts). The awards were given by Masashi Takano, the leader of the team of Japanese consultants, and Ana Žegarac from the Development Agency of Serbia.
The awards were designed by consultants from Japan and include the participation of all mentors from Serbia who worked directly with companies. The best mentors were chosen by the mentors themselves, based on data on sales growth, development and innovative achievements in the companies they trained. The main goal of the entire event is to exchange experiences from the field and find new ways to improve assistance to companies.
The mentoring program covered the entire territory of Serbia: Subotica, Zrenjanin, Novi Sad, Rum, Sremske Karlovce, Belgrade, Požarevac, Kragujevac, Kraljevo, Užice, Novi Pazar, Niš, Leskovac, Vranje, Zaječar, Kruševac, Loznica and Lajkovac.
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