According to the medium-term macroeconomic projection, the cumulative growth rate in the period 2024-2026 will amount to 12.2 percent and will be driven by the growth of domestic demand, and with the recovery of global trade supported by a slight positive contribution of net exports, it is stated in the fiscal strategy for 2024 with projections for 2025. And 2026, published by the Ministry of Finance.
The document states that the Serbian economy is expected to grow at a rate of 3.9 percent annually, and the increase in real consumption of the population will follow the growth of economic activity and will amount to an average of 3.6 percent.
Exports are expected to grow at an average annual rate of 10.3 percent, which is faster than the expected annual growth of imports, which will average 8.7 percent, and it is estimated that construction activity will grow by an average of 6.1 percent. .
When it comes to Gross Domestic Product, it is expected that its real growth in 2004 will be 3.5 percent, in 2025 it will be 4.0 percent, and a year later 4.3 percent.
The document emphasizes that the Government of Serbia will continue to lead a responsible and predictable fiscal policy in the coming period, synchronized with monetary policy and focused on minimizing the negative economic consequences of increased geopolitical tensions, but also on locating new sources of growth.
It Is also expected that a stable inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) will continue, which will ensure the transfer of knowledge and technologies, as well as new sales channels to domestic producers, and as for GDP growth in 2024, it will be driven by domestic demand, while net exports will have a slightly positive contribution.
The expected Increase in wages, both in the private and public sectors, higher employment and further growth of pensions, will result in a growth of real personal consumption of 3.5 percent, and a moderate growth of investments of 3.2 percent is expected.
It Is estimated that even in 2024, the service sector will play the role of the dominant carrier of growth in economic activity, and it should be diversified and realized in most service activities, especially in trade and traffic, tourism and hospitality, as well as in the ICT sector.
When it comes to industry, estimates are that it will continue to grow by 3.6 percent, primarily due to the activation of new production capacities, but also the expected recovery of external demand.
It Is estimated that the construction industry will also record growth, due to the continuation of works on the construction of road and railway infrastructure, larger investments in energy, as well as a larger volume of private investments.
For the agriculture sector, and assuming average agrometeorological conditions, growth of 0.9 percent is projected for next year.
Stanić: The banking sector in Serbia is stable, modern payment methods are growing
Despite the circumstances caused first by the pandemic and then by other crises, the banking sector in Serbia has remained stable, highly liquid and adequately capitalized, and the stability of the banking sector has been additionally strengthened, Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Dragana Stanić said today and stated that are all relevant indicators of banks’ operations many times above the prescribed minimum values.
Opening the conference “Development of financial services, opportunities and challenges” organized by the Council of Foreign Investors (FIC), she assessed that the NBS is achieving its legally established goals despite the external shocks and crises to which we have been exposed for more than three years, and that the NBS has in the previous six years , except for the pandemic in 2020, was a net buyer of foreign exchange on the domestic foreign exchange market.
Stanić pointed out that the central bank is working on the innovative introduction of cashless payments and cost reduction, and stated that the merchant fee for accepting payment cards at physical points of sale, i.e. post terminals, was practically halved from an average of 2.0 percent to around 1.06 percent. For acceptance at online sales points from an average of over 2.3 percent to 1.18 percent.
“There was an increase in the number of card payments, so at the end of the first quarter of this year, the number of cards issued was almost 11 million, which is 6.7 percent more than at the same time last year. During the first quarter, 116 million payments by payment cards were recorded by citizens, which is growth by 19.63 percent compared to the same period in 2022,” she said.
She stated that the use of other state-of-the-art payment methods in our country has also increased, as evidenced by the fact that at the end of the first quarter, there were 3.78 million users of contracted electronic banking services, which is an increase of 6.06 percent compared to the same period last year. When it comes to mobile banking, 3.4 million had this service, which is 11 percent more than in the first quarter of 2022.
As particularly important, she pointed out that the number of transactions carried out via mobile banking in the first quarter of this year increased by 27.8 percent compared to the first quarter of 2022, which, according to her, indicates an increasing orientation of users to use mobile phones to make payments. .
“The Law on the Protection of Users of Financial Services in Distance Contracting and the Decision on the Conditions and Method of Establishing and Verifying the Identity of a Natural Person created conditions for concluding contracts on the use of financial services at a distance. During the first quarter of 2023, 34,000 contracts were concluded, and of that number 29,000 were concluded electronically, and the rest were concluded through video user identification,” said Stanić.
She added that in terms of the type of financial product, citizens used the option of remote contracting to a greater extent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same quarter of 2022 when contracting the service of a current account for 9.72 percent, savings, term or demand, for 8.51 percent, cash loan by 0.22 percent.
Zoran Petrović, a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Foreign Investors (FIC), recalled the initiatives that FIC had in the field of digitization of financial services, which were implemented in cooperation with the Government of Serbia.
He pointed out that the National Bank of Serbia recognized the Council’s recommendations and invested significant efforts in implementing the introduction of electronic, i.e. digital bills of exchange for legal entities and entrepreneurs, whose full implementation is expected soon.
He reminded that the FIC advocates for the improvement of the business climate, the acceleration of European integration and the implementation of structural reforms, and that in order to further develop the business environment, a dialogue with the public and private sectors as well as the academic community is necessary.
He especially pointed out the importance of digital services, which brought a huge innovation in business.
“Citizens and businesses who interact with us want it to be as quick and short as possible, to be able to deal with their own things, to have time for their private life and for business, and it is our job to enable them to use all the services, products and services they use , they use it in the most efficient way possible,” Petrović said.
According to him, a lot has been done in this area in Serbia, such as the introduction of the service of issuing the so-called qualified signature in the cloud, electronic recording of traffic in real time via the Internet, i.e. online fiscalization and electronic invoicing.
“That, as well as the introduction of the first registered electronic identification scheme, enabling the payment of monthly bills, making purchases in retail stores as well as in online stores in an extremely simple way through the national IPS system using a QR code, represent exceptional developments made by competent institutions, especially the NBS”. Pointed out Petrović.
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