Zorana Mihajlovic has met with an IMF delegation to discuss “the reform of the railways, capital projects and improving the business environment in Serbia.2
The Serbian government announced this, saying that Mihajlovic, a deputy prime minister and the minister of construction, transport and infrastructure, and the IMF representatives met in Belgrade on Wednesday.
Mihajlovic “informed the IMF delegation, led by the Head of the IMF Mission James Roaf and Head of the IMF Mission in Belgrade Sebastian Sosa, about the actions taken to reform the railways by reducing the number of employees and rationalization of railway network.”
All four railway companies have adopted plans for optimization through the reduction of the number of employees, and talks are still underway on the financing of costs of the lines with a lower level of profitability, but for which there is an interest of local governments and companies for their maintenance, it was said at the meeting.
When it comes to capital projects planned for 2017, the Ministry will continue the implementation of current projects, primarily on Corridor 10, Corridor 11 and the rail, with the start of new ones, including construction of the Surcin-Obrenovac motorway and modernization and reconstruction of the Belgrade-Budapest railway, on the Stara Pazova-Novi Sad section.
In terms of improvement of the business environment, it was estimated that the reform of issuing building permits has already given results. Specifically, the electronic licenses are issued on average for five days, and the number of issued building permits is growing from month to month, so the June record for the number of permits issued has already been exceeded in July by two percent, when 1,301 permits were issued.
