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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Government’s plan bulwark against economic crisis

Belgrade, 13 April 2009

Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said today that the government is in control of the situation and will not allow the country to become unstable. He stressed that the government’s economic stability plan is the state’s bulwark against the global economic crisis.

Mirko Cvetkovic

In an interview yesterday with the daily Vecernje Novosti Cvetkovic said that the economic crisis will affect all segments of society, stressing that the government’s job is to ensure that the burden is equally shared and that this was the main idea behind the measures implemented.

This means that those who have less should feel proportionately less affected, said the Prime Minister, adding that the crisis has hit all sectors of the economy.

He said that at the moment there are no indications that the crisis will worsen, which does not mean that we have triumphed over it, but there is no reason for panic because the measures implemented by the Serbian government during the past few months have already proved to be effective.

He said that a further fall in industrial production has been arrested and the value of the dinar has been stablilised, adding that if current projections remain valid there will be no need for a new budget revision.

We expect a stable revenue flow and the current level of economic activity to hold, said Cvetkovic.

He said that inflation will not go beyond projected rates this year, adding that the beginning of the growth of inflation will be the sign that we are recovering from the crisis.

Employees as well employers understand the situation in the country and the government’s measures, he said adding that the economy will be stimulated by infrastructure investments and a tender for building 20 kilometres of the Corridor 10 highway section from Novi Sad to Subotica has been announced.

Responding to the question whether the crisis will affect the EU integration process, Cvetkovic said that European countries are now more busy dealing with their economic difficulties than EU enlargement issues which does not cast doubts on Serbia’s European future but does affect the process.

We expect visa restrictions to be removed by the end of this year, which will be one of our biggest steps forward. When Serbia is included on to the Schengen “white list” the Serbian people will on a personal level feel as if they are members of the EU, while the state will continue with reforms and further EU integration, said Cvetkovic.

Speaking about the law on transfer of jurisdiction to the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, which is a requirement for the Vojvodina Statute, the Prime Minister said that the bill was completed two weeks ago and sent to the Vojvodina authorities, where amendments were recommended and it was then returned to the Serbian government.

This is a complicated procedure because every minister has an opinion regarding the jurisdictions of their ministry and the bill also has a political significance. We are working on this matter and I think that it is far too important to be settled in a hurry, said Cvetkovic.

He said that the main question is whether finance should be included in the jurisdictions being transferred from the national to the provincial level.