Mali meets with IMF mission

BELGRADE - A delegation of the Serbian Finance Ministry, headed by First Deputy PM and Minister Sinisa Mali, met on Wednesday with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission headed by Annette Kyobe.

It was the first meeting at the Finance Ministry as part of the first review under Serbia's current non-financial arrangement with the IMF, a policy coordination instrument (PCI).

Mali noted that 2024 had been a good year and that Serbia had begun this year with numerous challenges that had led to downgraded growth projections and a decline of FDI, the ministry said in a statement.

He added that Serbia's deficit would, however, remain below 3 pct of GDP, and noted that this was important for macroeconomic stability as well as for the arrangement with the IMF.

He said the Serbian labour market was still in good shape, that budget liquidity had been retained and that the level of the debt-to-GDP ratio was low.

Besides macroeconomic results, Mali and Kyobe discussed other objectives under the new arrangement, such as reform goals in the energy sector, the process of capacity-building at the tax administration and jobs for a thousand more people in 2025.

Kyobe said Serbia had done much when it comes to fiscal transparency, especially in view of the soon-to-be-released results of an IMF mission that evaluated the country's fiscal transparency in February this year.

"Under the current arrangement, the fiscal programme is based on a fiscal deficit of up to 3 pct of GDP during the arrangement and up to 2.5 pct in 2028 and 2029, which helps set priorities in project implementation and reduces the public debt further," the statement said.