Serbia needs annual GDP growth higher than 4-5% – Budget surplus may lead to salary raises in 2017

The GDP growth of 2.8% in 2016 provides a good basis for further steps to be taken by the Government of Serbia, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic stated today at the topical session of the government, attended by representatives of the World Bank.

The Government of Serbia aims to maintain the trend of growth of Serbian economy and to have the GDP growth increase from 3%, planned for 2017, to 3.5% in 2018, in line with the projections of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Vucic said that public finances were stable, but that a lot of years needed to pass for the standard in Serbia to be comparable to that of the EU countries.

– Our growth is stable, but needs to exceed 4-5% in order for us to get closer to the EU countries. That's why I'm not satisfied with the 3% growth. It's much better than -3%, but still not enough – the prime minister emphasized.

The prime minister added that Serbia would have a budget surplus at the end of April and that, if the trend continued, there would be raises in the public sector and the public administration in 2017. He said that the budget surplus as of the current date was RSD 2.4 billion.

Vucic also reminded that the deficit planned for the end of April was RSD 53 to 54 billion.

Vlada Republike Srbije

Svetska Banka-WB Beograd

Međunarodni monetarni fond-MMF Beograd

Aleksandar Vucic

World Bank

growth of gross domestic product

growth of GDP

GDP of Serbia

International Monetary Fund

IMF

budget surplus

budget of Serbia

salary raises in public sector

salary raises in public administration

budget deficit