World Bank provides technical help for more efficient operations of EPS – Two agreements and USD 1.35 million donation contract signed

World Bank Regional Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller and Serbian Minister of Finance Dusan Vujovic on Thursday (April 19, 2018) in Washington signed three agreements, two for Reimbursable Advisory Services (RAS) – a form of technical assistance, and one grant, the World Bank announced today.

Under the first agreement, the World Bank will provide technical assistance to the Government of Serbia to improve the performance of power company Elektroprivreda Srbije (JP EPS). This will be done through strengthening corporate governance, risk management and business planning of EPS, which will contribute to improved efficiency of EPS. The technical assistance is part of the broader engagement of the World Bank in Serbia and support to the government’s economic reform and restructuring program.

Under the second agreement, the World Bank will provide technical assistance for Serbia to update its National Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment using the tools and methodology developed by the World Bank.

The press release says that the two agreements are in response to Serbia’s request for World Bank expertise.

The grant in the amount of USD 1.35 million to be funded by Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and administered by the World Bank will aim to improve the quality of government’s financial information, which should provide accurate data on assets, debt, revenues and expenditures, and thus contribute to improved management of public funds, the press release says.

The Ministry of Finance reported that Muller and Vujovic met as part of the spring session of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and that Muller said that it was important for Serbia to remain in the group of countries with the best fiscal, macro and reform results, continuing to present itself as a stable and safe country in the Balkans.

Muller said that Serbia had achieved extraordinary results in the domain of macro monetary stabilization and fiscal consolidation and that the country now had a better than ever insight into the real possibilities of development, helping it to define its priorities in continuing the reforms more precisely.

– Serbia has achieved noticeable progress on the road it went down several years ago and it now needs to continue the positive progress in the completion of the initiated project and reforms with equal dedication – Muller said and added that the good rating and the results made for a ripe market for new investors and that the World Bank would continue cooperating and providing support to the Government of Serbia in addressing the upcoming challenges.

Minister Vujovic said at the meeting that Serbia planned to persevere in all the reforms it had initiated and to continue down the path of dynamic economic growth and a stable macroeconomic situation, while emphasizing the importance of the support provided by the World Bank in that domain, through structural and other loans.

– We have completed the three-year arrangement with the IMF, but we also have a lot of tasks ahead of us, such as the reform of the public administration, the Tax Administration and the tax system, the restructuring of big state companies and the continuation of the process of privatization of state-owned companies – Vujovic said.

Serbia’s success in carrying out and completing the three-year precautionary standby arrangement, signed by the government with the IMF in early 2015, was praised at the meeting, the Ministry of Finance says in its press release.

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Svetska Banka-WB Beograd

Međunarodni monetarni fond - MMF Beograd

Akcionarsko društvo Elektroprivreda Srbije Beograd

EPS

Cyril Muller

Dusan Vujovic

spring session of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank

agreement with the World Bank

Reimbursable Advisory Services agreement with the World Bank

Reimbursable Advisory Services

National Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment

World Bank donation

Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

fiscal consolidation