Quarterly Monitor of Economic Trends and Policies in Serbia, January-March 2008

High and ever-rising inflation is Serbia's main problem. Like inflation around the world, it was caused by hikes in the prices of oil and food, but is now spreading to other products. Spending must be cut if inflation is to be reined in and the only remaining area in which this can be done is public spending. And here lies the incertitude; promises made during the election campaign were very generous where public spending was concerned. If the new government keeps those populistic promises, there is a very real danger of inflation running out of control.

Of the positive macroeconomic movements in Q1, the high economic growth, acceleration of exports, sustainable real growth of wages – somewhat lower than the growth of economic activity – and moderately restrictive monetary policy, can be singled out. Besides the high inflation, on the negative side were the current account deficit, sluggish activity on the financial markets and the major drop in the Belgrade Stock Exchange indices.

Quarterly Montor, complete document, download (.pdf) (9.98 MB):

Quarterly Monitor by the chapters, download:

Impressum, Table of Contents (.pdf) (116 kb).

From the Editor (.pdf) (258 kb).

Trends Review (.pdf) (317 kb).

Trends - International Environment (.pdf) (299 kb).

Trends - Prices Exchange Rate (.pdf) (1.15 MB).

Trends - Employment Wages (.pdf) (840 kB).

Trends - Economic Activity (.pdf) (870 kB).

Trends - BOP & Foreign Trade (.pdf) (1 MB).

Trends - Fiscal Flows & Policy (.pdf) (471 kB).

Trends - Monetary Flows & Policy (.pdf) (894 kB).

Trends - Financial Markets (.pdf) (1.5 MB).

Spotlight on 1 - Macroeconomic and Fiscal Aspects of Decentralization (.pdf) (631 kB).

Spotlight on 2 - Transition Cost of Introducing Mandatory Private Pension Funds (.pdf) (881 kB).

Appendix (.pdf) (1 MB).