At the sitting held on 23 April, the Agriculture Committee considered the Information of the Ministry of Trade and Services – Republic Directorate for Commodity Reserves on the condition of agricultural and processed food products in stock on 27 March 2009 and the Information of the Ministry of Trade and Services - Republic Directorate for Commodity Reserves on the outstanding debts owed to agricultural producers from court proceedings and the Bill amending and modifying the Republic of Serbia 2009 Budget Law, section 14 – Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management.

The material for the first two items on the agenda was designated top secret, so the Committee members closed that part of the sitting to the public in order to consider it. That part of the sitting was attended by the State Secretary at the Ministry of Trade and Services, Ljubisa Dimitrijevic and Director of the Republic Directorate for Commodity Reserves, Goran Tasic and associates.

In the continuation, the Committee members considered the Bill amending and modifying the Republic of Serbia 2009 Budget Law, section 14 – Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management.

On the behalf of the submitters, the Bill was outlined by Branislava Lukac, department head at the Ministry of Finance and Milan Stegic, Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management. The representatives of the competent Ministries stressed that the 2009 budget rebalance is characterised by a restriction of expenditure, primarily discretionary expenditure. The expected drop in income amounts to 49.4 billion RSD, decrease of expenditure 28 billion, and the deficit has been increased from 49.9 billion to 20.6 billion RSD and is now 79.5 billion RSD. An inflow of about 6 billion RSD is expected from the rationalisation of public administration, and 15 billion RSD and 3 billion RSD respectively from economising on the transfers towards the local self-government and the Republic Health Insurance Institute. Overall public subsidies have been reduced from 17 to 12 billion RSD, while agricultural subsidies will not be reduced as the necessary funds will be supplied from the Fund for Stimulation of the Development of Agricultural Production. Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management stressed that the up side of this measure is that subsidies will not be reduced this year, but the down side is that the Fund’s means intended for subsidising farmers will be depleted in 2010.

In the discussion on the Bill amending and modifying the Republic of Serbia 2009 Budget Law, section 14 – Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management the Committee members and representatives of the Ministries in charge exchanged opinions on the dynamics of repaying the loans into the Fund for Stimulation of the Development of Agricultural Production, the funds intended for the agrarian budget, as well as specific items of the budget.

The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairman, Zoran Masic.