IMF happy with railway sector reforms - minister

IMF happy with railway sector reforms - minister

After a meeting with the IMF delegation led by the Head of the mission to Serbia James Roaf, Mihajlovic said that the topics discussed were reform of the railways, investments in this sector, the roads and a new way of maintenance since this year public calls for the maintenance of 3,000 kilometers of roads will be announced.

According to the Serbian government, she said that "contracts for this year’s rehabilitation of 220 kilometers of roads will be signed soon" while last year more than 3,200 people left the Serbian Railways and that years’ old debts of this company have been settled.

Serbian Railways made an inventory of all its property and found out that there is an excess of assets worth more than RSD 16 billion, which will be sold, Mihajlovic said, adding that the reform of the cadastre was also discussed, while a new law on cadastre will be adopted after it is "put on a public discussion from the first week of April."

The goal is to reduce the waiting time for registration in the cadastre from 45 days to one to three days, she explained and added that her ministry completed on time everything that was agreed.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the directors of these international financial institutions expressed their satisfaction with what has been done to date.

"Burden of the past"

Serbian Minister of Economy Goran Knezevic also met with the IMF delegation on Tuesday and "informed them that the process of privatizing the Methanol and Acetic Acid Complex from Kikinda, the Pancevo-based Azotara nitrogen plant and Petrohemija petrochemical plant would be open until March 31 this year."

According to Beta, Knezevic said that there was interest on the part of investors and added that he hoped that their fate would be resolved this year, the Ministry of Economy said in a statement.

"Serbia carries this burden of the past with it every day," he said and added that resolving the question of those three companies would do a lot to free Serbia's fiscal system, but also contribute to directing capacities to developmental activities in Serbia.

Knezevic further said that the Ministry of Economy's priority was the growth of the private sector and improving the business environment.

"That is precisely why we have proclaimed this to be the Decade of Entrepreneurship, so that small and medium enterprises will have the lasting support of the state," he said, adding that this year alone various forms of support programs would be secured, worth over RSD18 billion.

He also hailed the opening of Chapter 20 in Serbia's EU accession talks, on entrepreneurship and industrial policy, saying that it was very important because it would help raise economic support and strengthen the competitiveness of the national economy.