December 2 (SeeNews) - Serbia's economic growth is expected to exceed 7.5% this year, President Aleksandar Vucic said.
"Excluding Ireland, due to its specific status, Serbia will cumulatively, for the last two years, be the country with the highest economic growth rate in Europe. This means faster growth of living standards compared to other European countries," Vucic said on Wednesday, as quoted in a statement by his office.
Chinese investments in Serbia, above all those in the Zelezara Smederevo steel mill and the mine in Bor, have put Serbia back on the path of successful countries and are pulling the country out of the crisis, Vucic said.
"We are becoming the second country in terms of copper production in Europe, after Poland, and second in terms of gold production, after Finland," Vucic noted.
Serbia's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by a real 7.7% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2021, after rising by 13.7% in the previous quarter. On a quarterly comparison basis, Serbia's economy rose by 1.6% in the third quarter of 2021, after growing 1.3% in April-June.
Earlier this month, Serbia's central bank increased its projection for the country's economic growth in 2021 to a range of 6.5%-7% from an earlier forecast of 6.5% in light of economic developments since the beginning of the year