BELGRADE (Serbia), November 16 (SeeNews) – The net inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Serbia rose 12.6% year to date compared to the same period of 2016, a senior official of Serbia's central bank said.
"The current account deficit is estimated at 4.6% of GDP and will be more than fully covered by the net foreign direct investment inflow," the general manager of the bank's directorate for economic research and statistics, Ana Ivkovic, said during the presentation of regular report on Wednesday.
Last month, the central bank said the net inflow of FDI into Serbia rose to 1.09 billion euro ($1.28 billion) in the first half of 2017, from 923.7 million euro in the like period of last year.
Fiscal trends are still exceeding expectations, primarily due to the significant growth in fiscal revenue, Ivkovic said. "Instead of a deficit, expected until recently, a surplus was achieved, measuring 2.6% in the first nine months, or 5.8% of GDP excluding interest expenses."
The share of central government public debt of the gross domestic product (GDP) continues to decline, Ivkovic noted.
Serbia's central bank, NBS, has lowered its projection for the country's economic growth in 2017 to 2% from 3% estimated in August, due to the negative effects of supply-side factors in the first half of the year.
The GDP growth is expected to accelerate to around 3.5% in 2018 and 2019 chiefly due to the faster expansion of household consumption on the back of an expected further rise in real disposable income. In addition to a continued rise in employment, a contribution is also likely to come from the growth in the minimum wage and public sector wages and pensions, and the expected preservation of price stability, the central bank said.
($ = 0.8492 euro)