Mali: Our cumulative GDP growth one of highest in Europe

BELGRADE - Serbia's 2019-2022 cumulative GDP growth was 13.7 pct, one of the highest in Europe, Finance Minister Sinisa Mali said on Wednesday in a reaction to recent reports by some media that have compared Serbia's 2022 GDP growth to that of other countries in the region.

In a Facebook post, Mali said that, in the three-year period, cumulative GDP growth in Germany had been 1.5 pct, 1.3 pct in Italy, 1.1 pct in the UK, 5.1 pct in Switzerland, 3.8 pct in Austria, 6.5 pct in Greece, 6.6 pct in Montenegro, 10.3 pct in Albania, 13.6 pct in Croatia, 11.3 pct in Romania, 11.1 pct in Bosnia and Herzegovina and 10.8 pct in Bulgaria.

That means that the Serbian economy grew at a higher rate than all those economies in the toughest period of the crisis, he noted.

"If Germany, one of the strongest European economies, registers real GDP growth of 1.9 pct in 2022, it is hypocritical to criticise a slowdown of GDP growth in Serbia, which has never been better prepared for a crisis in the past decades," Mali noted.

The scale of the current crisis is sufficiently reflected in the fact that European economies were sliding into recession in 2022, while, despite the inevitably slowed growth, Serbia was setting local records in terms of wage, pension and investment levels.

Serbia's jobless rate is at an all-time low of 8.9 pct, FDI inflow has reached a record-high 4 bln euros and monthly wages, pensions and the minimum wage have been increased, Mali said.