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BELGRADE (Serbia), October 8 (SeeNews) – Serbia’s central bank, NBS, said on Thursday it lowered its key repo rate to 11% from 12% and cut the ratio of dinar-denominated mandatory reserves to 25% from 30%, aiming to boost the liquidity of the country’s banking system.
The amendments concerning the mandatory reserve requirements will take effect between October 18 and November 17, the NBS monetary committee said in a statement.
The amendments will increase the banking sector’s liquidity by 14.5 billion dinars, NBS Governor Radovan Jelasic told a news conference.
He also said that Serbia’s economy contracted by a real 2.7% in the third quarter of 2009 after shrinking by 4.1% in the first half of 2009.
“We expect that Serbia’s GDP will fall by 3.0% in 2009, which is lower than our earlier projections that GDP growth will slow by 3.6%,” Jelasic said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said in its latest forecast that Serbia’s economy will contract by 4.0% in 2009.
NBS last changed the repo rate on July 10, cutting it to 12% from 13%, when it also lowered the ratio of dinar-denominated mandatory reserves to 30% from 35%.
(1 euro=93.0870 Serbian dinars)