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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Increase employment rate, export growth as priorities for Ministry of Economy and Regional Development

Belgrade, 6 June 2007

Serbian Minister of Economy and Regional Development Mladjan Dinkic stated today that priorities of the Ministry for the upcoming period will include increasing the employment rate, export growth, speeding up structural reforms and improving competitive position of the Serbian economy as well as tourism development and more balanced regional development.

Mladjan Dinkic

In the first press conference since his new appointment, Dinkic stressed that the first move on the Ministry’s agenda was to create a budget that will provide implementation of measures to increase employment rates and a more balanced regional development.

Speaking on measures necessary to be undertaken in the upcoming period, he said that unemployment is a big economic and social problem of the Serbian economy and therefore the Ministry’s aim is to halve the number of unemployed persons in Serbia in the next two years.

The unemployment rate in late 2006 stood at 21.6% and we aim to reduce this rate to 11-12% within the next five years, Dinkic stressed noting that this is a relatively high unemployment rate in comparison with international standards.

Dinkic said that the Ministry will stimulate direct greenfield investments and explained that anyone who builds a plant or a service facility employing over 50 people will get some subsidies.

He also announced a start-up loan programme with no mortgage as of September, noting that loans will be granted for a period of five years, with a grace period of one year and with a 1% interest rate.

Dinkic announced that the third measure will be micro-loans for self-employment granted to those who start their own business and employ at least four or five persons, whereas the fourth measure will be loans for craft shops and small and medium-sized enterprises which will be approved from the assets of the Fund for Development.

The fifth measure are active employment measures implemented through the National Employment Service, and these are programmes of self-employment, programmes for using severance pay to set up a private business, and the programme of training and re-qualification. Special attention will be paid to the last programme because surveys show that the structure of the unemployed does not match the needs of the economy.

As for the measures for increasing exports, Dinkic said that through the Agency for Export Insurance and Crediting funds will be set aside for export insurance and crediting, while a special sector within the Ministry will deal with improvement of competitiveness and quality of business operations.

The Minister explained that one of the reasons why Serbian companies are not more competitive is that Serbia has not adopted appropriate European technical regulations and standards. The Ministry is the one that has to help companies to adopt these regulations as soon as possible.

He said that the Ministry will also take measures to secure that the level of foreign direct investment from 2008 onwards be between $3 billion and $5 billion per year.

Speaking about the more balanced regional development, Dinkic said that more than €100 million will be used this year alone for those purposes and voiced hope that Serbia will have economic growth of between 7% and 8%.

The next field of work of the Ministry of Economy and Regional Development will be speeding up structural reforms. Cases of all socially-owned companies that need to be privatised are currently being analysed and the approximate deadline for termination of their privatisation will be determined, Dinkic said.

He said that there are some 1,250 socially-owned companies that will be privatised or taken over in one of three ways - by auction, tender or receivership procedure.

Privatisation of some state-owned public companies will also be within the Ministry's competence.

Speaking about the development of tourism, Dinkic said that priorities are investing in the infrastructure in tourist destinations, using the potential of the Danube and resolution of the issue of hotels.