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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

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IMF Mission on visit to Serbia for first arrangement review as of today

Belgrade, 23 March 2023

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Sinisa Mali today started talks with the Mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led by Donal McGettigan, as part of the first review of the current stand-by arrangement.

On this occasion, Mali pointed out that Serbian public finances are stable and that the first quarter ended with positive indicators, and added that Serbia continued to grow despite all the challenges, and that the public debt is fully under control.

Summarising the previous year, as well as the first quarter of this year, he reported that there was a record inflow of foreign direct investments and a historically low unemployment rate.

In this sense, McGettigen praised the efforts of the government of Serbia and the Ministry of Finance, as well as everything that was done to maintain the stability of public finances.

He agreed that it is important that, when it comes to expenditures, funds are spent on public investments that contribute to further economic growth.

Mali and McGettigan also discussed situation in the energy sector, and the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that a lot has been done in that area in the last few months, and that Serbia expects large investments in this sector in the coming years.

He emphasised that Serbia is on the right track as far as the goals in the field of energy from the current arrangement are concerned.

When it comes to the state of the budget, Mali said that the budget financing needs for this year are covered, noting that due to global challenges, we have space, i.e. so-called "buffers" in the budget, in case the state needs to react in some way.