Serbia’s 4.5% growth forecast for 2027 rests increasingly on an investment cycle whose scale is much larger than Expo itself. The National Bank of Serbia’s August projections place infrastructure, construction, services, automotive manufacturing and Expo-related activity at the centre of the expected acceleration from 3.2% GDP growth in 2026 to 4.5% in 2027.
The numbers behind that outlook are unusually large for the Serbian economy. The programme “Leap into the Future – Serbia Expo 2027” contains planned capital projects with a combined value of €19.561bn. Only €1.206bn of that total relates directly to Expo. The rest is a wider infrastructure envelope: €7.734bn for road infrastructure, €4.766bn for railways, €3.394bn for municipal infrastructure, €487mn for water, air transport and hydropower projects, and €1.974bn for public-sector modernisation, education, science, health, sport and other projects.
That distinction matters. Expo is best understood not as a single event with a €19.6bn price tag, but as the political and investment timetable around which a much broader capital programme is being accelerated.
The NBS already sees evidence that the cycle is feeding into activity. It estimates that GDP growth accelerated to 3.6% year on year in the second quarter of 2026, from 3.2% in the first, with services contributing 2.2 percentage points, construction 0.4 points, agriculture 0.3 points, industry 0.2 points and net taxes 0.6 points. Construction itself grew an estimated 9.0%, while the value of completed construction works rose 9.7% and building permits increased 4.5% in April-May.
Fixed investment was also recovering. The NBS estimates real fixed investment rose 4.8% in the second quarter, contributing 1.1 percentage points to GDP growth. Private investment remained supported by retained corporate profits and bank lending, while investment loans were rising at a double-digit rate.
The 2027 acceleration is nevertheless expected to come predominantly through services. The central bank estimates that service activities will contribute around 2.1 percentage points to growth in 2026, rising to about 3.2 points in 2027 as Expo increases tourism, business activity, transport and other services. By 2028, after the event effect fades, the contribution is expected to return towards 2.2 points.
That pattern is one reason the 4.5% forecast should not be interpreted as Serbia’s new permanent growth rate. The NBS places medium-term potential growth closer to 3.5% annually. The 2027 figure is an event- and investment-enhanced peak inside a wider growth cycle, rather than evidence that the economy’s long-run productive capacity has suddenly risen to 4.5%.
The export side of the economy is also being reshaped. Stellantis has become one of the most visible examples. The NBS reports that exports of motor vehicles increased 51.1% year on year in the first half of 2026, as production of the Fiat Grande Panda and partly the Citroën C3 expanded from the Kragujevac plant. Motor vehicles accounted for nearly three-quarters of the increase in merchandise exports, while the automotive cluster’s share of total goods exports approached 20%.
Manufacturing output of motor vehicles increased 43.3% year on year in Q2, and the NBS expects further increases in electric-vehicle production in Kragujevac. Manufacturing is consequently expected to remain the largest positive contributor among production sectors, adding around 0.3 percentage points to GDP growth in both 2026 and 2027.
Infrastructure construction and manufacturing are therefore developing in parallel. The road component of the capital programme includes motorways, expressways, bridges and tunnels. Railway investment includes the Hungarian-Serbian railway and the reconstruction and modernisation of the Belgrade-Niš line. The broader construction pipeline also includes large projects such as the Belgrade metro and an underground tunnel, which the NBS expects to increase imports of equipment and intermediate goods as implementation advances.
That import effect is important for the macro balance. Infrastructure booms can raise GDP while simultaneously increasing external deficits because machinery, steel, equipment and other inputs are sourced from abroad. Serbia is entering the cycle from a stronger external position than previously expected, however. The NBS has cut its current-account deficit projection to 4.1% of GDP for 2026 and around 3% in 2027, partly because exports have performed better and Expo itself is expected to generate additional tourism and business-services revenues.
For 2027, the central bank expects net exports to add about 0.7 percentage points to GDP growth, a reversal from the mildly negative contribution expected in 2026. The mechanism is not primarily a goods-export boom. It is the anticipated surge in service exports associated with foreign visitors, business activity and the Expo event.
The investment cycle is also arriving with Serbia’s public debt at a relatively contained level. At end-June, general-government debt stood at 44.1% of projected 2026 GDP. This gives the fiscal authorities more room than highly leveraged European peers to run a large capital programme, although execution quality, cost control and project selection become increasingly important as annual spending volumes rise.
The NBS does not provide project-level return calculations or financing costs for the €19.6bn envelope, so any assessment of individual project economics would require information beyond the Inflation Report. What the report does establish is the macroeconomic scale: capital formation, public works, services and export capacity are being aligned around the 2026-27 investment timetable.
Agriculture provides an additional lift. Following a weak 2025 season, the NBS now expects agricultural production to increase around 7% in 2026, up from the 3% assumed in May, adding roughly 0.3 percentage points to GDP.
This makes the composition of growth unusually broad. Services remain dominant, but construction is rebounding, manufacturing is benefiting from automotive investment, agriculture is recovering, and the state is moving through a multiyear infrastructure pipeline.
The risk is that several of these drivers are temporary or execution-dependent. The NBS itself expects growth to ease back towards its potential rate after the Expo period. Large infrastructure programmes can also create bottlenecks in construction labour, materials and imports. Construction input prices were already 10.8% higher year on year in June, well above consumer inflation.
The strongest reading of the NBS forecast is therefore not simply that Expo will raise Serbian GDP. It is that 2027 is becoming the convergence point of several investment cycles at once: roads, railways, municipal infrastructure, Belgrade transport projects, automotive manufacturing and tourism-related services. The resulting 4.5% growth rate would mark a substantial acceleration, but the longer-lasting economic value will depend on how much of the temporary spending boom translates into durable transport capacity, export productivity and private-sector investment after Expo closes.
