March 19 (SeeNews) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it completed on Friday its visit to Serbia to initiate discussions with policymakers in the country on a new economic reform programme supported by the fund.
The authorities confirmed their interest in a new programme focused on maintaining fiscal and macroeconomic stability and advancing reforms to reach faster, more inclusive and sustainable private sector-led growth, the IMF said in a statement on Friday.
"The programme is expected to be supported by a Policy Coordination Instrument, a non-financing arrangement recently introduced in the IMF to provide a framework for policy advice and monitoring in countries which do not need IMF financial support," James Roaf, head of the IMF’s Serbia team, said in the statement.
The authorities and the mission had productive discussions on the broad macroeconomic objectives and policy priorities of the new programme, including to tackle the grey economy, increase public and private investment, strengthen fiscal institutions and ensure financial sector support for growth, Roaf said.
The mission is planning to return to Belgrade in May to discuss specific policy measures to be included in the programme, he added.
The IMF mission visited Serbia in the period between March 12 and 16 to analyse the results of the three-year stand-by arrangement (SBA) and the institutional and structural reforms to be implemented by the Serbian government.
In February, the IMF said that Serbia exited a successful $1.32 billion (1.08 billion euro) three-year programme. After three years of effort under the programme, Serbia's economy has turned around, as fiscal accounts recorded a surplus in 2017, economic confidence improved with stronger investment both from foreign and domestic sources, while unemployment is near historic lows, and falling, banks are solid, and non-performing loans are now below their pre-crisis levels, the IMF said at the time.
($=0.8146 euro)