November 4 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government has adopted the 2020 draft budget envisaging a deficit of 20.2 billion dinars ($192 million/172 million euro), or 0.3% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), it said.
The draft budget envisages revenues of 1.314 trillion dinars and expenses of 1.335 trillion dinars, the government said in a statement on Friday.
"Serbia is showing that it can achieve high growth rates despite the slowdown in EU economies. According to the current Fiscal Strategy, the central government debt projection for 2020 is 50.3% of GDP," finance minister Sinisa Mali said, as quoted in the government statement.
The government will allocate 295.4 billion dinars for salaries, as well as 581.2 billion dinars for pensions. According to the Swiss formula, pensions will grow 5.4% next year, Mali said.
Capital investments in the draft budget are planned at 198.9 billion dinars which be used to finance improvements to Serbia's road and railway infrastructure.
Serbia's budget surplus grew to 46.6 billion dinars in the first eight months of 2019 from 36.8 billion dinars in the prior-year period, according to finance ministry data.
Serbia's budget balance showed a surplus of 32.2 billion dinars in 2018, compared to a surplus of 33.9 billion dinars in the previous year.
(1 euro = 117.440 dinars)