The fall in the gross domestic product (GDP) of Serbia in the second quarter, which is, after Lithuania, the smallest in Europe, does not mean much because it is “typical for small countries” – said today the professor of FEFA faculty in Belgrade, Goran Radosavljevic.
“There are at least a dozen more underdeveloped countries in the world that have a smaller decline than Serbia, and Belarus officially has economic growth in the first half of 2020,” Radosavljevic told the Beta agency.
The smaller drop in the GDP of Serbia than other European countries is not, as he said, the result of a good economic policy of the state, but the structure of the economy which is based on sectors that did not suffer a big drop due to the pandemic.
The Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, said yesterday that the second quarter ended with a fall in GDP of 6.5 percent, although the projected was much higher, minus 15.4 percent.
She said that already in June, there was a slight growth of 0.1 percent and that Serbia was the second fastest growing economy in Europe in the second quarter, right after Lithuania.
However, Radosavljevic said that the authorities “derogate from the institutions” by publishing the information before the competent services announce it.
“Until the beginning of the epidemic, the Ministry of Finance published a presentation with detailed macroeconomic data, so they could be monitored and compared with the previous period, especially data on foreign trade, but it abolished this practice, probably due to poor results,” said Radosavljevic.
He added that at the same time, the representatives of the authorities are announcing the results of “phenomenally” low growth before the competent institutions do that, and thus unjustifiably attribute their merits to themselves.
He said that, judging by the published data on industrial production, the growth is driven by the food, chemical and oil industry of Serbia, which did not work last year due to overhaul.
However, observing short series of data, according to Radosavljevic, says nothing about one economy, BiF reports.
