Economy Stimulus Package Must Go Through “Strict Filters”

The economy will get new aid by February 15, and the total value of the economy stimulus package will exceed EUR 1 billion, announced Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. All companies can therefore count on the monetary support that would last until spring. The workers will survive the winter without layoffs, and all citizens of legal age might get another one-off aid during the year. The amount is not known, but it will be lower than EUR 100.

Vucic said that the economy was most likely to get aid in the form of the payment of two or three times half the minimum wage for 1,052,000 workers (the same number that has received help so far). He also announced sector-based support for tourism, hotel managers, travel agencies, guides, bus transporters, amounting to another half a minimum wage. The president said that the state would also look to help the pensioners additionally. Symbolically, by March, they should get packages of vitamin C, D and zinc.

Nebojsa Atanackovic, the honorary president of the Serbian Association of Employers, says that this was to be expected and that the state’s decision to help the economy should be praised. The state needs to increase and concretize the aid to certain social categories, but the one-off aid to all citizens should not happen again, as it amounts to wasting money.

When it comes to the aid to the economy, he says that not everyone should be helped the same way. So far, it has become apparent that there’s a big difference between helping a hotel in a big city and helping a hotel in a tourist center.

Milorad Filipovic, a professor at the Faculty of Economics, says that the announced stimulus package sounds good, but that it doesn’t seem realistic. All things considered, it would be something that completely exceeds the state’s capabilities.

According to him, it clearly shows that, this time, state aid should go through strict filters and be siphoned, so that it is not distributed widely to everyone, but only where necessary, so that the activities would be maintained, thereby avoiding the shutting down of companies.

Unija poslodavaca Srbije Beograd

Poreska uprava Srbije

Ekonomski fakultet Beograd

Serbian Association of Employers

Tax Administration

Development Finance Corporation

DFC

Faculty of Economics

economy stimulus package

aid to the economy

Aleksandar Vucic

minimum wage

sector based help

Nebojsa Atanackovic

Milorad Filipovic