New round of talks with IMF about the cooperation programme begins

Plenary session held yesterday in the National Bank of Serbia marked the beginning of official talks between the representatives of Republic of Serbia and IMF Mission. Serbian delegation is led by the NBS Governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic, who represents Serbia in the IMF. Also present at the meeting were also the representatives of the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economy.

The IMF Mission, led by James Roaf, will stay in Belgrade May 7-18 to discuss the modalities of future cooperation with Serbia, NBS states

It was pointed out that during this time the focus would be on the current macroeconomic developments and projections. The dialogue of the two parties will continue following the last mission’s visit to Belgrade in March, as well as during the spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank Group (WBG) in Washington and will include the economic programme’s outlines supported by the IMF new non-financial, advisory arrangement with Serbia.

it was stated that the new arrangement is expected to underpin the achieved macroeconomic and fiscal stability and give support to further implementation of necessary structural reforms aimed at more robust and sustainable economic growth.

As Tanjug reminds, the talks about a new arrangement are taking place at the time when Serbia recorded the growth of its GDP of 4.5% in the first quarter, European Commission estimated that Serbia is expecting the biggest economic expansion in this decade, but also at the time of clear need to finish implementing economic reforms and restructure the public sector.

After the successful completion of the three-year standby arrangement with precautionary measures with the IMF in February this year, the Serbian authorities have shown interest in continuing cooperation with the Fund, but in a different form. The new arrangement would be non-financial and backed by Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI) that IMF recently introduced with the goal to create framework for guidance and policy tracking in countries that do not need Fund financial resources.

The new deal aims at preserving the current macroeconomic and fiscal stability and supporting the continuation of necessary structural reforms in order to have stronger sustainable growth led by the private financial sector but also to fight grey economy, to increase state and private investments, strengthen fiscal institutions and making sure financial sector supports economic growth, Tanjug added.

Narodna banka Srbije Beograd

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo privrede Republike Srbije

Međunarodni monetarni fond-MMF Beograd

NBS

IMF talks

James Rouf

European Commission

Policy Coordination Instrument

PCI