February 21 (SeeNews) - Montenegro aims to bring its budget deficit in line with the Maastricht criteria in 2019, finance minister Darko Radunovic has said.
"We keep public debt and budget deficit under control. A downward path of public debt is expected in 2019, as well as a smaller budget deficit, below 3%, within the Maastricht criteria," Radunovic said on Wednesday during a meeting with representatives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to a press release issued by the finance ministry.
An IMF staff mission led by the Fund's new country head, Srikant Seshadri, started a visit to Montenegro on Tuesday, the finance ministry said. During its February 20-27 visit, the IMF team will hold several meetings with officials of Montenegro's finance ministry.
"We agree that the macroeconomic situation in Montenegro is quite positive. Compliments for the economic growth in the previous period, we hope you will exceed the projected growth rate of 2.8% for 2019," the former head of the IMF mission to Montenegro, Martin Petri, said.
Montenegro's 2018 budget deficit amounted to 159.2 million euro ($180.6 million), equivalent to 3.5% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
($ = 0.881693 euro)