November 8 (SeeNews) - Serbia's president Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday he expects the country to close 2017 with budget surplus, while a deficit equivalent to no more than 1% of GDP will recorded next year.
"If there is budget deficit next year, we hope that it will be minimal, in any case below 1% of gross domestic product," Vucic said in a video file posted on the website of news agency Tanjug.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Serbia's fiscal deficit to stand at 0.7% of GDP in 2018, the head of the IMF mission to Belgrade, James Roaf, said on Tuesday.
Serbia's budget balance showed a surplus of 66.6 billion dinars ($650 million/560.7 million euro) in the nine months through September 2017, compared to a surplus of 27.2 billion dinars in the respective period of last year, according to finance ministry data.
The fiscal deficit of the country amounted to 7.9 billion dinars at the end of 2016, due to the repayment of 13 billion dinars of debt of state-оwned petrochemicals producer HIP Petrohemija owed to oil and gas company NIS [BEL:NIIS] in December. Excluding the Petrohemija debt repayment, the country would have closed 2016 with a consolidated budget surplus of 5 billion dinars, the ministry said earlier.
(1 euro = 118.810 dinars)