BELGRADE (Serbia), April 18 (SeeNews) – Serbia aims to achieve an investment-grade credit rating in the next two years, finance minister Sinisa Mali has said.
The government has prepared a clear plan on how to achieve the goal, Mali said during a presentation of investment opportunities in Serbia at the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday, according to a press release issued by the finance ministry.
Serbia currently has a BB credit rating from both Standard and Poor’s (S&P) and Fitch, as well as Ba3 credit rating from Moody's, all equivalent to non-investment speculative grade.
"Serbia is on its way to the European Union, but other European markets are also important to us. We have free trade agreements with the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and that gives us an advantage over other European countries. In recent years we have very large investments from China," Mali said during the presentation.
In February, Serbia's central bank said it expects the country's economy to grow by 3.5% in 2019, driven by domestic demand. The net inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Serbia rose to 3.2 billion euro ($3.6 billion) in 2018 from 2.415 billion euro in the previous year, the central bank said back then.
($ = 0.88724 euro)