Yugoslav River Shipping's 1.3M Euro Debt Written Off

A ruling issued by Serbia’s Ministry of Economy in January 2026 wrote off 159,560,966 dinars (about 1.3 million euros) in unpaid debt owed by Yugoslav River Shipping across eight loans the company took out between 2004 and 2023. The ruling was signed by Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Adrijana Mesarovic, and the documentation behind the entire procedure was published on August 9 by the outlet Pistaljka.

The write off was not unconditional. The company, known by its initials JRB, had to pay the other half of the debt to the Development Fund, the state fund that had spent years lending to Yugoslav River Shipping under programs meant for companies going through privatization. The effect shows up in the fund’s own books: JRB’s debt fell from 359.7 million dinars to 40.8 million dinars, a drop of 318.9 million. Half of that sum was collected, the other half written off.

A 207 Million Dinar Investment in an Alternative Fund

Notes attached to the financial statement published on the Serbian Business Registers Agency’s website show that during 2025, Yugoslav River Shipping invested 207 million dinars (about 1.7 million euros) in the Vista Rika Corporate alternative investment fund, a sum 47.4 million dinars larger than what the state had written off for the same company.

According to the Central Securities Registry, the company that manages the fund is 75 percent owned by Tatjana Vukic, a member of the Serbian Progressive Party’s Presidency. Vukic previously served as the government’s representative on the Managing Board of the Institute of Public Health and chaired the Supervisory Board of the state owned Dunav Insurance. She now sits on the supervisory boards of MVM Juzna Backa and MVM Elektromontaza.

What the Government Approved, and When

Minister Mesarovic had the government’s consent for her decision. It was granted in a December 2024 conclusion that remains unpublished to this day. The Government’s General Secretariat responded that consent to write off the private company’s debt was granted “in accordance with the Program on the Allocation and Use of Funds for Credit Support to Companies in the Privatization Process through the Development Fund for 2025.”

Deputy Secretary General of the Government of Serbia Tamara Stojcevic described the mechanism in a written reply:

“We would point out that this program provides that all users of long term and short term loans from the government’s programs and projects for business subsidies, that is credit support for the economy, from the previous period, may request that 50 percent of the unpaid portion of their debt under those loans be written off during 2025, on condition that they pay 50 percent of the outstanding portion of the loans they hold with the Development Fund, for each loan”

The reply also surfaced something no earlier report had highlighted: the program was not written for a single company. Every recipient of those credit lines was entitled, during 2025, to request the same 50 percent write off under the same condition. The Development Fund’s exposure under this program is therefore not limited to Yugoslav River Shipping, and how much has been written off under the 2025 program in total has not been disclosed.

How the Country’s Largest Shipping Company Was Sold

JRB was privatized in 2024. It was bought for 10.9 million euros by a consortium made up of Karin Komerc, Sani Eko Vita, NS Skver and Rakakop, and only on a repeated public tender, after the first one failed and the price was then cut in half. Pistaljka reports that the sale price ended up at half the company’s assessed value.

The tender’s conditions narrowed the field of bidders:

• only domestic companies could apply
• bidders needed a fleet of more than 15 pusher tugs
• JRB itself, the company being sold, operated a fleet of 51 pusher tugs
• only two companies met that condition

The registry now lists Bojan Lazic, owner of the Lazarevac based company Sani Eko Vita, which led the consortium, as JRB’s ultimate owner. Karin Komerc, whose fleet was what let the consortium meet the bidding requirement in the first place, has no representative on the company’s supervisory board.

In its first year after privatization, the company closed the books with 23 million euros in revenue, twice what the new owners paid the state. The 159.5 million dinar debt write off is worth roughly 12 percent of that sale price.

Can the Documents Be Seen?

Not yet. The Government’s General Secretariat refused to hand over the two conclusions and the approval given to the Ministry of Economy for adopting the program, arguing that “the document is not information of public importance, but rather a carrier of information.” The Ministry of Economy has not turned over the conclusions or the disputed program either. Despite a ruling from the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, the ministry has for more than two years withheld even the official valuation used to set Yugoslav River Shipping’s sale price. The company did not respond to Pistaljka’s questions.

40.8 million dinars remains to be collected. The document that would show the true scale of this program is the Development Fund’s report on its 2025 write offs, since only that report would reveal how much money the fund lost under the same scheme with its other borrowers.