Off the wire
• Counter-terrorism to top agenda of Nigerian president's visit to Cameroon  • Israeli drone kills two Syrian fighters near Golan Heights  • Vietnam's Mui Ne listed among world's best destinations for sand-boarding  • Roundup: Turkey steps up fight against terrorist groups  • 2015 Euro-Asia Economic Forum to focus on building Silk Road economic belt  • 2nd LD writethru: Afghan gov't assessing report on Taliban leader Omar's death  • Weather forecast for world cities -- July 29  • Weather forecast for major Chinese cities, regions -- July 29  • Senior CPC official calls for more traditional opera masterpieces  • 1st Ld-Writethru: China approves renewable energy zone in Winter Olympics candidate city  
You are here: 　 Home

Serbia's economic measures show impressive results: PM

Xinhua, July 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Economic data from the second quarter of 2015 show Serbia is on the right track in stabilizing its economy, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Commenting on the economic parameters, Vucic said that the results are above prediction and announced a slight increase in pensions and salaries in the public sectors that were cut down by 10 percent this year as a part of the measures of the fiscal consolidation agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

He said Serbia owes these results to the fact the that the collection of taxes is 55 million U.S. dollars higher, excise taxes 50.5 million dollars higher, and non-tax revenues 10.1 million dollars higher, compared to the same period last year.

Vucic explained that the country is making faster progress than the conditions of the 1.2 billion dollars' worth Stand-By Arrangement with IMF demand, stressing that the tax collection is more efficient while, two state-run companies, Airport Nikola Tesla and Air Serbia, have seven times higher incomes than in the same period last year.

According to him, the country's economic recovery intensifies, and according to the data from the second quarter of 2015 the growth of GDP at the end of the year can be predicted at 0.5 percent to 1 percent.

"If everything goes according to plan, and every month we achieve better results than projected by the IMF, the deficit of the state budget would revolve around 2.87 percent of GDP", Vucic said, announcing that the budget deficit, at present moment sums up to 25 billion dinars (229 million U.S. dollars).

Serbia will soon introduce a law on property origin that will according to Vucic improve tax collection even more by preventing tax evasion, and the budget inflow will allow incomes of pensioners, teachers, policeman, doctors, soldiers and other employees in the public sector to keep on growing in 2016.

However, according to him, indebtedness of the local governments is still a major problem and a burden for central budget, and those irresponsible authorities at local level should suffer political consequences no matter from which party they were elected to the function. Enditem