"Agreement reached to talk about increase of salaries"

"Agreement reached to talk about increase of salaries"

“We had a very good, constructive and substantive talks on all aspects, I wrote down some 17 issues that will be discussed this and next week,” Vujovic said.

The closing meetings with the IMF Mission are expected to take place on August 31 and September 1, when a press conference will be held.

Vujovic also stated on Friday that the projections of Serbia's GDP would be revised and increased from minus 0.5 per cent as the figure initially set at the time when the precautionary arrangement was launched to plus 0.5 per cent by the end of this year.

I have made it known that there is even greater room for improvement, but we will remain conservative in this respect because it is better for us to have a conservatory framework, Vujovic told reporters.

He noted that according to his estimates, the deficit would be revised and decreased from RSD 232 billion anticipated at the beginning of the year to around RSD 160 billion.

The focus of attention will rest on the manner to accelerate structural reforms and in this regard, we have had to ask (the IMF) for an additional time to the total duration of one year so as to solve the problems of some restructuring enterprises because the privatization process and the search for a solution to their status is going along more slowly than originally anticipated, Vujovic said.

Calls were also voiced for us to accelerate the process of public enterprise restructuring, primarily in the electric energy, gas and infrastructure sectors, the minister noted.

The IMF mission visiting Serbia for purposes of the second review of the precautionary arrangement has asked the government to accelerate the implementation of structural reforms, which the Serbian side promised to do, Vujovic said.

Replying to reporters' question as to whether the IMF voiced any complaints, Vujovic said that their only remark covered the sluggishness of the process, as they had expected to see lower resistance and tardiness in the implementation of structural reforms. The slow pace of reform implementation is caused both by administrative hardships and resistance by certain interest groups, he added.

Wherever there is room for changes, there is organized resistance or built-in administrative obstacles and if nobody is assisting the process, everything grinds to a halt, the minister said.