The fifth review of Serbia’s precautionary arrangement with the IMF will be the most difficult, PM Aleksandar Vucic said at the Kopaonik Business Forum.
According to him, this is the case because “some tough measures are yet to be put in place.”
Addressing a plenary session of the Kopaonik Business Forum on Tuesday, he said that the IMF, contrary to 2011, when its mission left Serbia after just a month, did a third, and already a fourth review.
“If manage to get through the fifth review, I believe we will have no major problems. I would like Serbia to complete the entire arrangement with the IMF, as that would guarantee that we are on the right track,” the prime minister underscored.
Vucic also said he expects the privatization of Serbia’s sole steel mill Zelezara Smederevo to be completed by the end of spring or the start of summer, adding that he will fight for the copper smelter RTB Bor, as it is of strategic importance.
“We are under constant scrutiny of the EU, every single dinar is being monitored,“ Vucic said.
“However, we cannot close down the east of Serbia. If we do not have Zelezara, the entire region will not have anything. One company has 5,500 employees, the other 6,500. With their supply chain of companies, they account for 25,000 jobs,“ he said.
Asked how Zelezara happened to be in the red, although authorities said it would be profitable, Vucic said it had been impossible to predict commodity prices on global markets.
Vucic also said on Tuesday he is confident that Fiat will remain in Serbia and that the workers at its Serbian plant will also have jobs in the future.
“They (Fiat) did not take part in an investment so large to leave an empty plant behind,” Vucic told reporters at the Kopaonik Business Forum.
He expressed hope that there will be an opportunity for discussions with the Fiat Group management about whether it is interested in manufacturing another car model at the Kragujevac plant.
Declining to elaborate on details of the agreement with Fiat, Vucic noted that Serbia has met all financial liabilities towards the carmaker, and that construction of a road section that will connect Kragujevac with Corridor 10 will begin soon.
“We will start the works very soon – in March,” Vucic said.
Source B92
