Growth of Serbia, western Balkans to continue in 2017, 2018: World Bank

Serbia's gross domestic product (GDP) will increase by 3 percent in 2017, the World Bank (WB) estimated in their latest biannual South East Europe economic report presented on Thursday.

The report also warns that reforms need to be continued in order to resolve unemployment and poverty in the region.

Growth in Serbian and the western Balkans in 2017 can be achieved by further fiscal consolidation, reforms, as well as resolving structural challenges.

The report shows that estimations of economic performance and the outlook for the region did not change in comparison to autumn 2016. Economic growth will be 3.2 percent of GDP in 2017 and 3.6 percent of GDP in 2018.

Serbia and Albania progressed faster than previously estimated due to their decrease of fiscal deficit, dealing with issues of huge, inefficient state enterprises and improving business environment for domestic and foreign investors, and this compensated for slowing down in the expansion in Montenegro and Macedonia, report explains.

"The Western Balkans saw acceleration of growth in 2016 together with an encouraging decrease in unemployment and poverty rate," Ellen Goldstein, country director of the WB for South East Europe said.

However, as the report points out, the unemployment rate in the region was around 22 percent, which remains to be a challenge, despite past progress. Endit