Serbia Wants EUR 2.45 Billion from IMF – Support to Budget and Capital Projects

The prime minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, stated last night that Serbia is currently asking for a financial “standby” arrangement worth EUR 2.45 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

– We will use the money for additional budget support, and we will also use it to complete infrastructural projects, which we are not giving up on. That is what pushes the living standard of our citizens upward and what our growth depends on – the prime minister said for RTS.

According to her, the IMF has estimated that the public sector and the economy of Serbia were “very resilient, not unbreakable, but very resilient”.

– Since 2014, we have had an arrangement with the IMF, which is important because it gives additional credibility to the country and, practically, when even the IMF can confirm that we manage our finances in a good, transparent way, it means that we are a serious country, which will help us attract direct foreign investments and borrow at lower interest rates – Brnabic said.

She pointed out that the GDP growth in 2022 would be lower than planned, but that it would “certainly be a growth”.

– At the moment, the Ministry of Finance and the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia have different prognoses, but I hope that it will be around 3%, or slightly above 3%. It depends on how the fourth quarter turns out to be – the prime minister said.

When asked whether it is possible to reduce the public debt to 50% of the GDP, Brnabic said that the public debt of Serbia at that moment was at 53.7% and pointed out that it would not exceed 60%.

Vlada Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Međunarodni monetarni fond-MMF Beograd

Narodna banka Srbije Beograd

Government of Serbia

Ministry of Finance

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Ana Brnabic

standby arrangement

credit borrowing

public debt

public finance