The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Financial Performance of Innovative Enterprises in Serbia

The aim of the research is to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial performance of innovative enterprises in the Republic of Serbia. The subject of research is the financial performance of innovative enterprises in the period from 2018 to 2020. Data were collected from the annual financial reports of enterprises publicly available on the Serbian Business Registers Agency website. Innovative enterprises are those whose innovative projects are co-financed through the Mini-Grants Program in 2018. Financial performance was analyzed during the year the project was being implemented and two years after its implementation. The research starts from the hypothesis that the effects of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic did not exclusively negatively affect the value of the financial performance of innovative enterprises. Qualitative and quantitative methods of financial analysis were applied in the research. The research results confirm the hypothesis and point to the fact that in the year of the introduction of restrictive measures, a significant number of innovative enterprises recorded liquidity growth, justified debt growth, improved profitability and position in the supply and sales market