Serbia will meet creditors this week under International Monetary Fund auspices to agree on new ways of helping distressed clients overcome financial difficulties. The so-called “Belgrade Initiative” will take place on Friday as the National Bank of Serbia seeks to preserve financial stability, Vice Governor Veselin Pjescic told a banking forum in today.
“This will bring together bank members of the former Vienna Initiative with the aim of finding a solution for handling corporate non-performing loans,” Pjescic said. Serbia was one of the countries in 2009 to take part in the Vienna Initiative under the auspices of the IMF securing foreign banks’ commitment to keep credit exposure to Serbia.
“Our region has started to recover and is less vulnerable than after the fall of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. but some important challenges still remain,” Pjescic said.
Non-performing loans stood at 19.9 percent of the gross credits of banks operating in Serbia.
Source Bloomberg
