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| Home > News & events > 2005 feature stories > Peace and finance boost Serb winery | |||||||||
Peace and finance boost Serb winery |
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Agri-business ready to expand into tourist trade Taking full advantage of the peace that has taken hold in ex-Yugoslavia, winemakers Sava and Elizabeta Alidjukic have planted new vines on property they own in the buffer zone between Serbia and Croatia. They wave at relaxed border guards as they drive through the opening in the wire fence demarcating the no-man’s-land between the two countries at peace for the past decade. Half a kilometre into the zone the couple stops to pop corks on bottles of red and white and enjoy the scent of rose bushes softly perfuming the early evening air. The scene couldn’t be more tranquil. As he toasts his guests and his future with a glass of šardone (chardonnay), Mr Alidkjukic quotes Gorky: “Winemakers bring sunlight into the souls of men.” For the couple and their two daughters, the future is sunny. Their restaurant and winery are improving and generating increasing profits, and they have a banker interested in their long-term growth prospects. They’ve come a long way. “We got started in 1992 with my grandfather’s vineyard which was producing 2000 litres of wine per year,” says Mr Alidjukic. “Now we make about 100,000 litres per year. Since 1992 we’ve been acquiring one or two hectares per year and now we have 11 hectares under grapes.” Three loans in three years The Alidjukics were among the earliest rural clients of Serbia’s small business-oriented ProCredit Bank, supported by the US/EBRD SME programme starting in 2001. The family’s first loan was €10,000 to buy and plant new vines and it was repaid in just one year. Then they borrowed €30,000 to buy more vines, refurbish their wine cellar and open a wine shop in neighbouring Backa Palanka. That 24-month loan was paid off in just 19 months. Their third loan, €50,000 to be repaid over three years, is funding new equipment for the cellar, particularly for cooling wines, and improvements to their restaurant which provides 30 per cent of family income. “There was no credit available here before ProCredit came along,” says Mrs Alidjukic. “The procedure to apply through ProCredit was simple and quick. We hope to keep growing with them.” “So now it’s time to stop planting and to start improving the cellar and the quality of the wine so we can raise the price, export, and attract wine tours to the farm,” says Mr Alidjukic. The family’s prospects are good. There’s an abandoned wine cellar down the street that dates from the Austro-Hungarian empire and has the capacity to hold one million litres of wine, which the Alidjukics would like to use as the basis for their business expansion. The family holdings are within reach of the Danube River and the small but glorious Fruska Gora mountain park, and can draw on tourists from nearby Hungary as well as from the rest of Serbia. Contact: Group for Small Business 11 April 2005 |
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