Since its establishment in June, 2006, AmCham's Finance Committee has striven to reduce administrative obstacles and the compliance burden stemming from financial sector regulations. It has presented the private sector view on rules and procedures, together with recommendations and examples of international best practices to relevant counterpart organizations.

Due to its advocacy efforts, the Finance Committee has achieved the following:

2009

• In mid-August, AmCham received feed-back from the National Bank of Serbia on our comments and recommendations regarding the new Draft Law on Foreign Exchange Operations. We are currently scheduling the meeting at the Ministry of Finance on this topic as a result of the discussion with Prime Minister Cvetković which occurred July 15. AmCham  comments on Draft Law on Foreign Exchange Operations and the document containing the feed-back received from the National Bank of Serbia can be downloaded here.
• Organized a Roundtable on the Financial Crisis and Its Impact on Business Risks in order to discuss these issues with economic advisers to the Prime Minister, regional experts and members of AmCham's Finance and Tax Committees; Agenda and presentations from the Forum are downloadable here.
• Commented on the new Draft Law on Foreign Exchange Operations within the public discussions initiated by the Ministry of Finance, as well as the Law currently in force for the benefit of the Guillotine project*. The aim of Committee suggestions was to ease the reporting burden, especially for transactions connected with foreign trade operations, reallocation of the supervisory role from banks to proper administrative authorities, as well as precluding possible misinterpretations, especially with regard to subject matter regulated by other financial statutes.

Guillotine project*: The "Guillotine" or "SRP" project (World Bank project, working within the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development) deals with removing unnecessary and inefficient regulations with the aim to improve the business environment, reduce legal uncertainty and increase competitiveness of the local economy. More about the project at http://www.srp.gov.rs/srp.

2008

• Was involved in the Ministry of Finance's one-year project for enhancing the financial system in Serbia by providing expert and comparative support for the Initial Public Offering (IPO) procedure as well as the development of debt instruments (government bonds, corporate bonds and municipal bonds);
• Organized a consultative session with representatives of international organizations active in the field of financial reform in Serbia.

2007

• Provided detailed comments on nine draft FOREX by-laws, including suggestions for amendments, the majority of which have been accepted by the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) staff in several rounds of consultations;
• Held a closed Roundtable on Capital Markets issues on NBS premises between Finance Committee members and representatives of relevant counterparts, including the NBS, the Ministry of Finance, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Central Registry and the Belgrade Stock Exchange;
• Pursued the initiative on capital markets reform resulting in legislative amendments to the Law on Corporate Profit Tax and to the Law on Personal Property Tax. The most important changes included reducing the capital gains tax from 20 to 10 per cent for natural persons and decreasing the withholding tax from 20 to 15 per cent in addition to abolishing the burdensome withholding procedure and easing the process for declaring capital gains/losses (allowing annual netting).

2006

• Established a dialogue with the NBS, including operational communication channels with its individual departments on two major financial laws, the Law on Banks and Law on Foreign Exchange Transactions;
• Accessed the legislative drafting process at an early stage and leveraged the opportunity to incorporate private sector feedback into key drafts;
• Assisted in drafting and advised on implementation of by-laws to the adopted Law on Foreign Exchange Transactions.