The Minister of Finance, Sinisa Mali, stated today that in the first quarter of this year, Serbia proved to be the absolute leader in terms of gross domestic product in relation to the countries of the region, but also Europe, and that even some figures pleasantly surprised him. Economic indicator is the best confirmation of the efforts of the President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and the correct economic policy pursued by the Government of Serbia.
– The latest data show that the growth of the GDP of Serbia in the first quarter amounted to 5.1 percent, while the GDP of Croatia amounted to only 0.4 percent. In the first three months of this year, Serbian GDP grew twice as fast as the GDP of countries in the region, such as Romania and Bulgaria, which are members of the EU. Romania achieved a growth of 2.7 percent, and Bulgaria a growth of 2.4 percent – said Minister Mali.
As he pointed out, other bad parameters were recorded in Croatia, such as the drop in turnover in retail trade in March of as much as seven percent, on an annual level. Croatia has the slowest growth since the last quarter of 2014, when the economy grew by 0.7 percent on an annual level.
The Minister expressed satisfaction with the results achieved by the Republic of Serbia, emphasizing that incredibly good results were achieved in the given circumstances, such as the amount of attracted foreign direct investments in the first quarter of this year.
According to him, in the first quarter of this year, Serbia attracted foreign direct investments in the total amount of 821.6 million euros, which is even more than what we attracted in the same period last year.
– So, this also shows some new trends, and that is that capital is slowly moving to the Western Balkans and that Serbia is a leader in attracting foreign investments. All the reforms we have implemented, starting with the reform of the cadastre, improving the issuance of construction permits, the capacity of local governments to equip sites with utilities and other infrastructure, construction of roads, have yielded results – said Mali.
According to him, how superior Serbia is compared to others is perhaps best indicated when compared to us in the region closest to Montenegro, whose inflow of foreign direct investment in the first quarter of 2020 amounted to 134.2 million euros or the inflow of foreign direct investment of our neighbors Bulgaria which is 249.3 million euros.
– We have already received certificates for our successes from the European Union, and the financial market gives us additional valorization every day. I would like the citizens and the economic profession to recognize our work and give us additional wind in the back with encouragement for other endeavors that we intend to undertake, especially when it comes to the realization of the “Serbia 2025” program – said Mali.
Mali expressed satisfaction with the dynamics of the opening of the economy so far and stated that the economy opened before he expected.
– When we take into account the fights that are still being waged with the corona virus in large countries such as the United States, but also other leading European countries, I cannot but express my satisfaction with what has been achieved. After the mitigation of measures, you can already see that we are on the way out of the epidemic, and that makes me especially happy, both because of the citizens of Serbia and because of our companies – stated Mali.
He once again reminded that the state will come out with a program of incentive measures for employment in the next ten days, which is another additional impulse to the economy, which is expected to accelerate, especially in the second half of this year.
– The expectations of President Aleksandar Vucic are justified that the GDP will not record any decline this year or that a GDP growth of one percent is possible. I study macroeconomic indicators every day and I am really optimistic. It is important that we recognize those niches that give us a higher GDP and that we work on increasing it, because it leads to a higher standard of living, and what we are all fighting for. From next year, we will go to the rates predicted by the IMF, which are those that exceed six percent and go up to 7.5 percent, which gives Serbia the right to say that we are rapidly approaching the standard of living of many developed countries – he concluded, Alo reports.
