The Serbia Technical Assistance for Reform of Corporate Financial Reporting (STAR-CFR) project was implemented by the Serbian government and the World Bank Centre for Financial Reporting Reform (CFRR), generously funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

The STAR-CFR project was designed to contribute to an enhanced investment climate in Serbia by improving the institutional and technical capacity of supervisory authorities, professional organizations, and universities for quality financial reporting in line with the EU acquis communautaire and good international practice. To that effect, the project focused on strengthening capacity for the accountancy and audit professions and improved monitoring and evaluation by regulators of financial reporting, for both private companies and SOEs.

STAR-CFR’s Project Development Objective (PDO) was achieved by strengthening the capacity of the Serbian Corporate Financial Reporting actors to deliver the expected quality of financial reporting and audit services within a modern regulatory system. This was done by providing technical assistance during the updating of the regulatory framework as well as delivering capacity building activities to the main actors. As a result of the Project, the updated legal framework is aligned to EU and international standards and there was a smooth transition to the new roles and responsibilities for audit oversight.

The PDO achievement was shared by both the Recipient-executed and the Bank-executed parts of the project. While the Recipient-executed part supported the promotion of better formulation, application, understanding and use of corporate accounting and auditing by aligning statutory framework with the acquis communautaire and good international practice, the Bank-executed part supported these reforms through building capacity for monitoring and enforcement for corporate accounting and auditing standards, improving accounting and auditing curricula for University and Professional Education Programs, and Institutional Strengthening and Monitoring of SOEs.