Sat, Feb 11 2012

Serbia to ask IMF for two billion euro

Mon, Feb 23 2009 10:49 CET

byClive Leviev-Sawyer

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Serbia to ask IMF for two billion euro

Serbian prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic

Serbian prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic has said that Serbia is to request two billion euro from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is to seek a further 400 million euro from the European Union.

The Serbian government website quoted Cvetkovic as saying that the country was considering the possibility of increasing by four times the amount of the loan obtained from the IMF, in order to deal with problems caused by the global financial crisis.

In a statement to news agency Reuters, Cvetkovic said that the IMF earlier had approved a loan of $520 million.

He said that the two billion euro from the IMF would be for foreign currency reserves.

The IMF loan agreement is expected to be concluded by April 2009.

The IMF already approved about one quarter of that sum earlier this year, but under the condition that the budget deficit comes down to 1.75 per cent of GDP in 2009.

Last week, the central National Bank of Serbia (NBS) said the economy was most probably heading into recession. Growth for 2009 is now expected to be between 0.5 and one per cent, significantly lower than the initially forecasted three percent, Jurij Bajec, economic adviser to Cvetkovic, told Serbian news agency Tanjug.

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