New Minister Faces Big Challenges, Experts Say

The program of Finance Minister-Designate Krstic will focus primarily on enforcing financial discipline and balancing the public finances. The program of Finance Minister-Designate Krstic will focus primarily on enforcing financial discipline and balancing the public finances, economics experts told the news agency Tanjug on Thursday. New Minister Faces Big Challenges, Experts Say Experts further said they believe that Krstic's program will be directed at making a clean break from a policy of excessive indebtedness and neglect of export-oriented industries. The onetime Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Mirko Cvetkovic, is of the opinion that Krstic will be facing serious challenges and that one of the most important jobs for him and his team to do will be to renew the arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a way to stave off the country's financial collapse. Cvetkovic maintains that the implementation of reforms, which should be carried out with the help of the IMF, will be difficult and there will be much resistance to such an economic policy, but anything else would be very bad indeed. Onetime NBS (National Bank of Serbia) Governor and Energy Minister, Kori Udovicki, said that it was a good thing to be bringing in a Yale graduate as the next finance minister, but that it would have been even better if government officials in the most responsible positions had expert teams to help them do their jobs better. "Ministers should learn to bring in experts and then listen to them, in which case (political) leaders would not have to bring in experts as ministers," Udovicki said. SNS (Serbian Progressive Party) Economic Council Coordinator Milenko Dzeletovic said that Krstic's program envisages first balancing the public finances, which means balancing budget revenues and spending, which will "be a difficult thing to do." Dzeletovic said that this program envisages also and a reform of the health and pension systems, a reorganization of the Revenue Department and better tax collection, returning the gray economy back into the legal channels, a serious reevaluation of the subsidies policy and the work of budget-funded economic development institutions, primarily the Foreign Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) and the Development Fund. He further said that this program is compatible with the SNS program. Beta/file/ VIP

New Minister Faces Big Challenges, Experts Say

Experts further said they believe that Krstic's program will
be directed at making a clean break from a policy of excessive
indebtedness and neglect of export-oriented industries.
The onetime Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Mirko
Cvetkovic, is of the opinion that Krstic will be facing serious
challenges and that one of the most important jobs for him and his
team to do will be to renew the arrangement with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) as a way to stave off the country's financial
collapse.
Cvetkovic maintains that the implementation of reforms,
which should be carried out with the help of the IMF, will be difficult
and there will be much resistance to such an economic policy, but
anything else would be very bad indeed.
Onetime NBS (National Bank of Serbia) Governor and
Energy Minister, Kori Udovicki, said that it was a good thing to be
bringing in a Yale graduate as the next finance minister, but that it
would have been even better if government officials in the most
responsible positions had expert teams to help them do their jobs
better.
"Ministers should learn to bring in experts and then listen to
them, in which case (political) leaders would not have to bring in
experts as ministers," Udovicki said.
SNS (Serbian Progressive Party) Economic Council
Coordinator Milenko Dzeletovic said that Krstic's program envisages
first balancing the public finances, which means balancing budget
revenues and spending, which will "be a difficult thing to do."
Dzeletovic said that this program envisages also and a
reform of the health and pension systems, a reorganization of the
Revenue Department and better tax collection, returning the gray
economy back into the legal channels, a serious reevaluation of the
subsidies policy and the work of budget-funded economic
development institutions, primarily the Foreign Investment and
Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) and the Development Fund.
He further said that this program is compatible with the
SNS program.