IMF delegation visiting Belgrade

An IMF technical delegation will visit Belgrade today.

Izvor: B92

Wednesday, 17.09.2008.

09:13

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An IMF technical delegation will visit Belgrade today. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation will meet with Serbian officials to discuss the country’s fiscal and monetary policy, as well as restructuring of the economy. IMF delegation visiting Belgrade The possibility of making a new arrangement between Serbia and the IMF has been floated. Serbia currently has no financial debts to the IMF, while National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Governor Radovan Jelacic says that Serbia does not need a new financial arrangement, but that it needs an “advisory agreement”. Finance Minister Dijana Dragutinovic said recently that she would be very happy if Serbia entered into a new arrangement with the IMF. Nikola Fabris, a professor at Belgrade University’s Faculty of Economics, says that preliminary talks on some sort of the new arrangement could begin today. "Such a program would certainly lead to a rapid drop in public expenditure, and probably to a relative fall in inflation. It would most certainly speed up restructuring of the economy. The key to the IMF’s program is to impose a sort of a discipline on the government—a type of discipline that currently does not exist. Actually, it will make it much easier for the government to resist tremendous populist pressures and grand promises on increased public spending,” Fabris said. The new IMF arrangement would have a positive effect on attracting new foreign investment, Fabris told B92. "As a rule, it’s not the arrangement itself that has the big effect, but the IMF’s judgment that the country is properly conducting its economic policy in accordance with the arrangement. We had a lot of problems during the previous arrangement with failure to fulfil all its provisions,” he said.

IMF delegation visiting Belgrade

The possibility of making a new arrangement between Serbia and the IMF has been floated. Serbia currently has no financial debts to the IMF, while National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Governor Radovan Jelačić says that Serbia does not need a new financial arrangement, but that it needs an “advisory agreement”.

Finance Minister Dijana Dragutinović said recently that she would be very happy if Serbia entered into a new arrangement with the IMF.

Nikola Fabris, a professor at Belgrade University’s Faculty of Economics, says that preliminary talks on some sort of the new arrangement could begin today.

"Such a program would certainly lead to a rapid drop in public expenditure, and probably to a relative fall in inflation. It would most certainly speed up restructuring of the economy. The key to the IMF’s program is to impose a sort of a discipline on the government—a type of discipline that currently does not exist. Actually, it will make it much easier for the government to resist tremendous populist pressures and grand promises on increased public spending,” Fabris said.

The new IMF arrangement would have a positive effect on attracting new foreign investment, Fabris told B92.

"As a rule, it’s not the arrangement itself that has the big effect, but the IMF’s judgment that the country is properly conducting its economic policy in accordance with the arrangement. We had a lot of problems during the previous arrangement with failure to fulfil all its provisions,” he said.

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