Serbia’s gross domestic product grew 0.4 percent in the last quarter of 2011, and the full-year expansion slowed to 1.6 percent as exports and investment declined on Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.
The fourth-quarter and the 2011 full-year GDP data was revised today from 0.8 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively, in a Jan. 31 flash estimate by the Belgrade-based Statistical Office.
Expansion in energy and mining, construction, information technologies and communications barely compensated the contraction in manufacturing industries, trade, banking and insurance, real estate, the report showed.
Serbia is heavily reliant on trade and financial links with the European Union, and the sovereign-debt crisis in the euro area has weakened demand for its exports. The government sees the economy growing by 0.5 percent at best this year, in line with existing International Monetary Fund’s forecasts.
This year’s GDP estimates may worsen after an almost 13 percent industrial output decline in February, a month of freezing weather and heavy snowfall that kept many industries out of work for days. The IMF will update the forecast for Serbia by mid-April, as part of its World Economic Outlook, IMF resident representative Bogdan Lissovolik said today.
