May 7 (SeeNews) - Serbia's economy is expected to recover from the coronavirus crisis faster than other countries in Eastern Europe due to support from its agriculture sector and car parts industry, the deputy director of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW), Richard Grieveson, said.
"I think that the [Serbian] agriculture sector will play an important role in the second half of the year," Grieveson said in a video file posted on the website of news agency Tanjug on Wednesday.
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Serbia could also take advantage of the economic recovery of Asia, due to its well-developed car parts manufacturing industry, Grieveson told an online new conference shortly after the publication of the institute's May 2020 interim forecast update report.
Serbia has the advantage that, unlike Croatia or Montenegro, it is not dependent on tourism, Grieveson said.
In the forecast update report, WIIW said the least severe gross domestic product (GDP) contractions in 2020 will be in economies that are less reliant on external trade and tourism such as Kosovo, (-4.4%) or Moldova (-3%), and/or are likely to use significant fiscal resources to counteract the downturn such as Serbia (-4%). The biggest real GDP contractions in 2020 are expected to be in Croatia, by 11%, Slovenia, by 9.5%, Slovakia, by 9% and Montenegro, by 8%, reflecting these countries’ particularly heavy reliance on external trade and/or tourism.