According to the Index of Economic Freedom, an annual index and ranking published by the Heritage Foundation from Washington and The Wall Street Journal, Serbia records progress in monetary freedom for the third consecutive year.
Monetary freedom combines a measure of price stability over the last three years with an assessment of price controls. Serbia’s ranking in this area continuously improved since 2013. With 5.3 points added this year, the country’s score climbed to 77.5 points.
Observed by year, Serbia’s score in the area monetary freedom rose by 1.6 points on 2014 Index (from 65.3 to 66.9), by 5.3 points on 2015 Index (from 66.9 to 72.2) and by 5.3 points on 2016 Index (from 72.2 to 77.5). Index scores ranging from 70 to 80 points qualify a country as “mostly free”, and Serbia’s accelerated upward move brings it close to the highest qualification – “free”. Improving at this pace Serbia gradually approached the average monetary freedom score for all listed countries, only to surpass it in 2016 by adding 1.8 and reaching 75.7 points. This is yet another confirmation of the results achieved by the NBS in the area of price stability, which is its primary objective.
In terms of the overall progress, Serbia surpassed all of its regional peers. The 2016 Index reflects the period from mid-2014 until mid-2015.
By area of economic freedom, Serbia’s ranking improved in five of the ten areas. Apart from monetary freedom, Serbia recorded progress also in property rights, business freedom, reduction of government spending and fiscal freedom, in recognition of the lower tax burden on businesses and citizens.
Having scored a total of 62.1 points or 2.1 points more than in 2015, Serbia moved 13 places up the ranking, i.e. from 90th to 77th place on the list comprising 178 countries. Its overall score exceeds the average country score for 2016 (60.7 points).
Source; Governor’s Office National Bank of Serbia
