Serbia’s 2019 economic growth will be below planed 3.5 pct, magazine says

Pixabay

The estimated 3.5 percent economic growth in Serbia for this year will be less, an analysis by Business Intelligence Balkans, a new service of Nova Ekonomija magazine said on Thursday.

The analysis says that both in European and Serbia’s economy a series of unfavourable processes have an impact on the GDP (BDP in Serbian) growth in 2019.

The slowing down of Serbia’s economy started in the 2018 third quarter and got worse in the last three months.

After last year’s first half 4.9 percent growth, in the third quarter, it dropped to 3.8, while in the fourth it was 3.5 percent.

The industrial production data suggest that the growth in the last quarter of 2018 will be lowered and for the whole year it will be 4.2 instead of preliminary planned 4.4, Nova Ekonomija’s analysis has said.

It adds that the reasons for the slowdown of Serbia’s economy should be looked for in internal industrial results and the regional problems.

Those internal reasons include the fall in coal, energy and car production in the second half of 2018, as well as the 100 percent import tariffs introduced by Pristina last November. Export to Kosovo makes up to three percent of Serbia’s overall export.

One of the possible reasons for Serbia’s economic slowdown in 2018 might be the decrease in Western European economies, but according to the analysis the real effects of that would influence the local economy this year.