September 13 (SeeNews) - Serbia's government has raised its economic growth forecast for 2018 to 4.2% from 3.5%, on the back of a better-than-expected performance in the first half, finance minister Sinisa Mali said.
The gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 4.9% on the year in the first half of 2018, while foreign direct investment (FDI) increased by 15.6% to 1.4 billion euro ($1.6 billion), Mali said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Serbian government has started work on the fifth cycle of its economic reform programme for the period 2019-2021 aimed at coordinating its economic policy with the European Union, Mali said.
The goal of the programme is to strengthen the basis for stable economic growth by addressing key economic challenges and policies that will ensure macroeconomic stability through fiscal sustainability, greater resilience of the financial sector and the improvement of competitiveness.
Last month, Serbia's central bank raised its projection for the country's economic growth in 2018 to 4.0% from 3.5% estimated in July on the back of a significant rise in investments.
($ = 0.860547 euro)