The privatisation of the Smederevo steel mill was not factored into the European Commission’s improved forecast for Serbia’s GDP growth rate in 2016, says Freek Janmaat, the head of the EU integration and economy department of the EU Delegation to Serbia.
Therefore, the possibility of the EC raising its GDP growth forecast for Serbia again is not ruled out, Janmaat said after the EC upped the forecast from 1.6 percent to 2 percent on Tuesday.
The improved forecast is a result of an increase in investments, but the privatisation of the Smederevo steel mill was not factored in, Janmaat said.
We will have to see what the end result is, but it could be one of the possibilities – the privatisation could boost the growth forecast further, Janmaat told reporters at the presentation of the EC’s spring report at the EU Info Centre.
Asked if the EC has given the definite green light for the sale of the Serbian steel mill to Chinese partners, Janmaat said that a dialogue is under way but that, at this stage, he is unable to say how long it will take.
Source; SerbGov
