Professor Goran Radosavljevic: Serbia at the back in Europe and the region when it comes to economic development, only Albania records worse results

Professor Goran Radosavljevic stated yesterday that Serbia’s economic development in the preceding ten years had been below the regional average.

Radosavljevic said in an interview for Novi Magazin that the average gross domestic product per capita, measured by purchasing power parity, was around 12% lower than the regional average in 2013-2020, whereas its growth in the same period was among the lowest ones in the region.

– For the sake of comparison, between 2001 and 2012, the average income and its growth was at the regional level. Whereas we kept up with the region in 2001-2012, between 2013 and 2020, Serbia gradually lagged behind the countries of the region. In the past ten years, countries which had better economic performances, that is, a quicker growth of the average per capita income than Serbia are: Romania – nearly twice as quick – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro and North Macedonia – Radosavljevic said.

He added that only the economies of Croatia and Albania had grown more slowly.

– If we also keep in mind that the income in Croatia is nearly 60% higher than Serbia, the conclusion is that only Albania had a worse economic growth dynamic than Serbia in the past ten years – pointed out Radosavljevic, a professor at the Faculty of Economics, Finance and Administration.

According to him, since 2012, Serbia has increased its average income compared to the EU average by three percentage points, which is the weakest result in the region after Albania.

– For example, in the same period, Romania increased its average income by 18 percentage points. The average income in Romania in 2012 was at 54% of the EU average, and in 2020 it grew to 72% of the EU average. Serbia is only at 43% of the EU income. So, we are once again at the back of Europe and the region – Radosavljavic said.

He said that Serbia was far from being “the economic tiger of the region”, although the authorities are trying in every way to present Serbia as a country with a quick and high growth, using any means available.

– The distribution of billions of euros of budget funds in the past two years without any sensible economic criteria, the big growth of debts followed by the non-transparent spending of those fund, as well as the huge subsidies for the creation of jobs, are supposed to show the economic situation as better than it really is – professor Goran Radosavljevic emphasized.

Fakultet za ekonomiju, finansije i administraciju FEFA Beograd

Faculty of Economics Finance and Administration

FEFA

Goran Radosavljević

income

per capita income

statistics

data analysis

economic development

region