Published on Tuesday, 14 February 2012 08:03
Prospects for economic recovery and inflation backsliding in Serbia will largely depend on the developments in the euro zone, Vice Governor of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Bojan Markovic said Monday. He said that Serbia's economic recovery would not be palpable before 2013, which will be largely dependant on the global economic growth trends.
Presenting the inflation report for February 2012, Markovic said that the NBS had downgraded growth estimates from 1.5 to 0.5 percent because of growth forecasts of Serbia's major trade partners (from the European Union) having worsened and the private owner leaving the steelworks in Smederevo.
Markovic added that the new estimate about falling GDP output was based on forecast indicating possible EU recession and a 0.5 percent drop in euro zone economic activity.
Speaking about inflation movement, Markovic noted that inflation had continued its downward trend in December, dropping to a seven percent year-on-year inflation rate, adding that its return within the bounds of tolerated deviations from the target, planned at 4.5 percent, plus or minus 1.5 percentage points, was expected as early as in the current quarter of 2012.
Markovic expressed the expectation that inflation would continue sliding until July under the influence of a Serbian Government's decree limiting trading margins to 10 percent, but cautioned about its return that could cause overall increase in prices above expected levels.
As regards the exchange rate, Markovic reiterated that it would remain stable, adding that its decline against the euro the previous week had not been followed by a drop in bank liquidity.
Markovic reiterated that the NBS would do everything it could to prevent excessive daily volatility of the exchange rate, adding that the foreign exchange reserves of EUR 11.6 billion were more than sufficient a guarantee of positive developments in that regard.
Source Emg