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Serbia on path of economic progress: Serbian PM

Xinhua, July 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

Economic reforms have led Serbia on a path to progress, said Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Thursday during a meeting with the new representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), adding the country would no longer be on the verge of bankruptcy.

Receiving the new permanent representative of the IMF to Serbia, Sebastian Sosa, Vucic said Serbia expected the continuation of successful cooperation with IMF in the future, and that the implementation of the program agreed on with IMF would be one of the main economic goals of the country.

"Thanks to the economic measures and reforms conducted so far, Serbia will never again be on the verge of bankruptcy, but on the path of progress," Vucic said, according to the government press release.

The release read that Vucic said the goal of the government was to secure better living standards for all citizens, and thanked Sosa and outgoing representative Kim Daehang for their support to Serbia's economic program.

According to the release, Daehang said Serbia had decreased its economic deficit in the past two years from 8.0 to 2.0 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).

Sosa agreed Serbia was on a good economic path.

Serbia introduced economic reforms in 2014 and continued reforms defined by the three-year standby precautionary arrangement with the IMF worth 1.20 billion euros (1.33 billion U.S. dollars) signed in February 2015.

Reforms include better control of the "grey economy," a reduction of state subsidies to public companies and support for private enterprises, as well as a decrease of salaries and the number of employees in public sectors.

The most recent IMF projection is that Serbia will have a GDP growth of 2.5 percent in 2016, with an inflation of 1.3 percent. Endit